The Idols and False Notions have Taken Deep Root

[Assyrian]

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Romans 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through (διά - A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through) the forbearance of God;

You missed out the second part of Strong's definition:
διά A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through (in very wide applications, local, causal or occasional)

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through (δι&#945 ́our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our peace with God is caused by Jesus Christ, it is the result of his work on Calvary. As Shernren has pointed out, Paul had a perfectly good preposition he used regularly when he wanted to stress the location of our salvation in (en) Christ.

"Through (δι&#945 one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).

Paul is giving the reason sin entered the world, as a result of the actions of one man, and the reason death came in, as a result of the sin. However if you want to interpret it locally, as a series of concentric channels, sin flowing through the middle of Adam and death flowing inside the sin, you still have to deal with a series of much stronger locational words in the rest of the verse.

G1519 εἰς eis ice A primary preposition; to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) ...

and from εἰς and ἔρχομαι to come or go
G1525 εἰσέρχομαι eiserchomai ice-er'-khom-ahee From G1519 and G2064; to enter (literally or figuratively): - X arise, come (in, into), enter in (-to), go in (through).

from διά and ἔρχομαι
G1330 διέρχομαι dierchomai dee-er'-khom-ahee
From G1223 and G2064; to traverse (literally): - come, depart, go (about, abroad, every where, over, through, throughout), pass (by, over, through, throughout), pierce through, travel, walk through.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through [διά] one man sin entered [εἰσέρχομαι] into [εἰς] the world,
and death through [διά] sin,
and so death spread [διέρχομαι] to [εἰς] all men,
because all sinned.

Paul isn't simply talking about one man's sin, but that through (even if you take it geographically) one man sin entered into the world. There is a much stronger geographic emphasis with the double εἰς preposition, both as a seperate word εἰς and in the compound εἰσέρχομαι. Sin came through one man and went into the world. It is only then Paul say and death through sin. Seemingly even here the emphasis is that sin which had come into the world kept producing death, rather than saying sin and death came through one man. Paul then describes death, which was the result of sin coming into the world, travelling throughout the world, to all men.

sin comes through one man
and comes into the world
death comes through sin
death spreads throughout to all men

Then Paul gives us the reason death enters into every man - because all sinned.

Paul says sin entered the world through one man. The rest of his discussion in this verse looks at what happened when sin came though one man and into the world. There isn't the slightest hint all men were inside that one man when he sinned and participating in that sin.

Where does Paul say we sinned in Adam?

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).
"By the one man’s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).
"Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).
"By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).

Not one of those verses, however many times you repeat them, says we all sinned in Adam.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor 15:21)

I love that verse, there is a wonderful pun in the first phrase that translators can't seem to decide how to translate, is it 'by man', that is by mankind, death came? Or is it by 'a man'? My e-sword versions are equally divided on the subject, it says 'a man' according to the ESV, GNB, ISV and RSV, but is simply 'man' in the KJV LITV WEB and YLT.


Of course this pun on ἄνθρωπος / man, a man, leads right into his use of the Hebrew name Adam / man to refer to the entire human race in the second part of the verse. We are all part of ἄνθρωπος mankind, we are all 'in Adam' today, and Paul says we die (present tense) 'in Adam'.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor 15:21)
There are Paul's words, I noticed you have no Scriptural support for your position

That verse is not talking about sinning, it is talking about dying,

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).

Even if you ignore the fact Paul uses the present tense in 1Cor 15:21 and make up a verse that says we all died in the past in Adam, you still aren't given a mechanism for all dying in Adam. Even your Romans quote says death came through the sin of one man, it does not say we all sinned in Adam.

and it is not something that happened when Adam sinned, Paul uses the present tense.

Paul uses a proper name, if you have a point from the declination of the noun let's hear it.

Proper nouns can be figurative and Genesis tells Adam was God's name for the people he created, so there is nothing in Adam being a proper noun that say it can not refer to the human race here. Whereas Paul's use of the present tense, saying all die in Adam, that all are 'in Adam' now, rules out the the idea he was talking about a historical event.

So do you have any scripture that say we all sinned in Adam?

Yes:

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor 15:21)​

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)​

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).​

"By the one man’s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).​

"Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).​

"By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).​

Do you care what the Scriptures say, because you never appeal to the testimony of Scripture, you just argue against a literal interpretation. Nothing else, only that.

I am not arguing against a literal interpretation here, though neither of the passages can be taken literally. I am saying that even if you take them literally, they don't say we all sinned in Adam. I am left wondering do you care what scripture says. It really doesn't seem to bother you that none of the passages you quote say anything like what you pretend them mean. Nowhere does Paul or any other writer in scripture even hint that we all sinned in Adam.

Why do you keep denying the clear meaning of the text? You said the original sin doctrine was based on a bad translation, that is false. You say person named 'Adam' is a figure of mankind and that is false. Then you pretend that you have made an actual argument because you simply repeated the same false notion again and again as if that were a sound exegesis and that is false.

I have shown you Where God calls the people he created Adam, and Paul speaks of us being 'in Adam' now. On the other hand you 'clear meaning of the text' involves quoting passages that don't say we all sinned in Adam and claiming they do.

All you have to do is show a passage which says we all sinned in Adam and you have won the argument, instead you just go on and on quoting passages which don't say anything like that.

Indeed, false notions have taken deep root.

Indeed they have since Augustine said we all sinned in Adam.

Verses, dictionary definitions, commentaries and exegetical treatments of the texts. I keep bringing it up because I am trying to uproot your grievous distortion of the clear meaning of the text with no substantive support.

I am just looking at what the text says, why don't you do the same?

Why do you claim 'these are Paul's words when he says nothing of the sort?

Because I know you are just chanting with absolutely no care or concern for the Scriptures. So I bring out the meaning from Calvin, Wesley, Barnes, Strong and as many resources as it takes to show your false notion for what it is. It is an a priori assumption applied to the Scriptures just as it is to the evidence in the Natural world.

If scripture was as crystal clear as you claim you wouldn't need to quote Calvin, Wesley, Barnes, Strong, and in fact you haven't quoted anything from them supporting the idea we all sinned in Adam, which is odd because as I said Wesley did accept that tradition, and I suspect Calvin did too. But why quote commentaries of men when we can simply look at the word of God?

Your talking in circles most of the time and then you run off on a tangent. We are not talking about the meaning of 'day' we are talking about sin and death.

You claimed I was out of context quoting verses that say death comes from sin. The very first verse to mention the death coming through disobedience is hardly a tangent. Neither is it a tangent to mention that Adam did not literally die on the literal day he ate the fruit, when you say "Death through the sin of the first Adam, you can't get a figurative interpretation..."

The first two and a half chapters are a fundamental part of a full scale declaration of the gospel.

Sorry Mark, I don't see how this backs your claim I was taking 'death spread to all men because all sinned' out of context. It is a rather simple statement, easily understood, as long as you don't try to make it says things that are never found in scripture.

Don't underestimate Paul's tendency to say the same thing over and over again with different illustrations. Rom 5:12 on is another illustration of the same gospel he was preaching chapter 3 using Adam as a figurative comparison to Christ.

He doesn't use Abraham as a figure of Christ, he doesn't use David as a figure of Christ. He certainly does not say that sin came through them.

Romans is full of different illustrations, of different aspects of the Gospel, I don't see why they should all be the same, and I certainly don't think your case is helped by Adam being the one Paul says he is taking figuratively.

No it's not, it's the way the first Adam (proper name of the literal man) prefigures Christ (proper name of the literal man)

You mean the way Sarah and Hagar prefigured the gospel by being mountains?

You need to watch figurative interpretations, they can trip you up very easily. All you doing is bringing your preconception of a literal Adam into Paul's figurative description. Paul is talking figuratively, you can't read it literally. He might be talking about a literal Adam, but he could say the same thing if he interpreted Genesis allegorically. Anyway I am waiting to see how your 'logical progression' contradicts the simple meaning of death spread to all men because all sinned.


Continued in next post...

 

[Assyrian]

...Continued

Death reigned from Adam to Moses, it was imputed by the law, that's how.

OK that made no sense. Was that a serious attempt to address the questions I asked?

And where does the bible talk of imputing death? If you sin you die, you don't get death imputed. The bible talks of guilt being imputed, or righteousness imputed, not death.

“there is a connection between death and sin. which existed in the case of Adam, and which subsists in regard to all who sin.” Prof. Stewart

That is what I said. The connection we see between death and sin in Genesis, the one who sin dies, continues on in everyone else who sins. You sin you die. Death spread to all men because all sinned. And that is Barnes not Prof Stuart.

"This is quite contrary to the acknowledged force of καὶ οὕτως kai houtōs, and besides, entirely destroys the connection which the apostle wishes to establish between the sin of the one man, and the penal evil, or death, that is in the world." Barnes

That is not Barnes, it is the guy who added notes to Barnes commentary:

It will not do to render "and so" by "in like manner," as Prof. Stewart does, and then explain with our author, "there is a connection between death and sin. which existed in the case of Adam, and which subsists in regard to all who sin." This is quite contrary to the acknowledged force of καὶ οὕτως kai houtōs... ​

'Our author' is Barnes, your quote is the guy disagreeing with him. His argument seem to be if we interpret and so death spread to all men because all sinned the way it read, you entirely destroy the message of original sin the apostle wishes to establish. In other words, what Paul says actually contradicts the theological meaning our note writer wants to read into the passage.

Adam is a proper name, used figuratively only as a comparison to Christ,

Gen 5:2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

not as to the historicity of Adam. In other words, you have turned the expression 'Figure of Christ' to mean 'figure of speech' which is a false notion that has taken deep root.

How can something that is not Christ be taken as a figure of Christ and the description not be some sort of metaphor?

I would think you knew this passage by now:

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)​

Sorry, where does this say Adam's sin was imputed by the Mosaic law?

That would be the law of conscience and the law of Moses respectively. Sometimes described as the lesser and greater lights of revelation demonstrating that 'all have sinned'. All have gone astray

Ok.

and Paul makes it clear that it was the transgression of Adam that brought death. That sin was imputed with the further revelation from the Mosaic law but the curse of the law, namely death, reigned from Adam to Moses.

Paul says one man brought sin into the world, but he tells us that death spread to all men because all sinned. We all sin, whether under the Mosaic law or not, and we suffer the curse of sin death as a result because we sin.

Both Adam and Moses, it should be noted, are proper names.

Yes and Adam was God's name for the people he created, and was a common word for man and mankind throughout the OT.

First of all you have not shown that it was based on the Latin, showed how it would have been different if he used the Greek, or made any logical connection. You just keep saying it with no substantive support. Your statement here is just false.

I have shown you where Augustine quoted from his Latin translation and interpreted the Latin's 'in whom all sinned' as 'all sinned in Adam'. I have also shown you what the passage actually means, because all sinned. So far you have come up with nothing in response.

And you have never show it in scripture.

That is a lie.

It would be so much more credible to show where the bible says all sinned in Adam than to keep calling me a liar. It's not there. Name calling doesn't make you case any stronger.

The only thing you have done is repeat the same erroneous statements. You have directly contradicted the Scriptures and distorted the clear meaning of the apostle Paul. I am not going to sit here and let you pretend that you have done any honest scholarship when clearly you have ignored every scholarly resource that has been quoted, cited and linked.

I am still waiting for evidence that the bible says all sinned in Adam. You have come up with a few examples of people making earnest attempts to read their tradition of all sinned in Adam that they got from Augustine, back onto scripture, but none has shown the slightest evidence that this is what scripture actually says. There isn't a single passage that even hints at this doctrine, except in Latin. But as you know Paul wrote in Greek.

No argument with Barnes there.

No comment, no confidence and certainly no argument here or elsewhere.

I agree with a commentary you quote and that is a problem to you?

Of course Jameson thrown in a "all sinned," that is, in that one man's first sin without so much as a by you leave. As I said this doctrine of Augustine is deeply ingrained in tradition.

Deeply ingrained in dictionaries, commentaries and exegetical works of Protestant Reformers and early church fathers.

Deeply ingrained yes, but not in the actually text of the New Testament. Paul said
and so death passed to all men because all men sinned.
You Jamieson commentary says
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned—rather, "all sinned," that is, in that one man's first sin.
Jamieson thinks it would be better if he added a line to the text, the bit Paul missed out in verse 12, and every other verse he wrote, that all men sinned in Adam. Thank God for Augustine and bad translations into Latin, we would never have know to add that bit in otherwise.

This isn't about original sin, because if it were the Scriptural basis would have dismissed Augustine's argument as anecdotal by now. This is about Adam as the first human, specially created as a divine fiat. That is all it's about and everyone in this theater knows it.

And there was me thinking you were trying to provide a basis for your 'all sinned in Adam' doctrine.

Paul says nothing of the sort.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor 15:21)

That is all die in Adam not all sinned in Adam and it is present tense not past. And as it is present tense it cannot be a literal Adam we are all in now. Given that 1Cor 15:21 is nothing like Jamieson's claim we all sinned in Adam's first sin, it is clear Paul says nothing of the sort.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).
"By the one man’s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).
"Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).
"By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).

No nothing in those verse that say "all sinned," that is, in that one man's first sin". Why don't you show us some verses that actually say we all sinned in Adam instead of keeping on quoting ones that don't?

Keep reading:

The last clause “for that all have sinned,” is to be regarded as explanatory of the sentiment, that death passed on all, in consequence of the sin of the one man. Some have translated ἐφ ̓ ᾧ eph' hō, in whom; and this, indeed, would assign the only just reason, why all are visited with penal evil on account of Adam’s sin. All die through him, because in him all have sinned.​

That is our busy note writer who kept 'correcting' Barnes commentary, as I pointed out to you in a previous post.

You will notice immediately that this agrees with what I have been saying all along in spite of your incessant objections.

Of course you do, the note writer is following Augustine's bad translation of εφ ω as 'in whom'.



Barnes completely contradicts what the note writer claims:

For that - ἐφ ̓ ᾧ eph' hō. This expression has been greatly controverted; and has been very variously translated. Elsner renders it, "on account of whom." Doddridge, "unto which all have sinned." The Latin Vulgate renders it, "in whom (Adam) all have sinned." The same rendering has been given by Augustine, Beza, etc. But it has never yet been shown that our translators have rendered the expression improperly. The old Syriac and the Arabic agree with the English translation in this interpretation. With this agree Calvin, Vatablus, Erasmus, etc. And this rendering is sustained also by many other considerations.​

(1) if ῳ ō be a relative pronoun here, it would refer naturally to death, as its antecedent, and not to man. But this would not make sense.​

(2) if this had been its meaning, the preposition ἐν en would have been used; see the note of Erasmus on the place. [as shernren has pointed out to you]​

(3) It comports with the apostle's argument to state a cause why all died, and not to state that people sinned in Adam.He was inquiring into the cause why death was in the world; and it would not account for that to say that all sinned in Adam. It would require an additional statement to see how that could be a cause.​

(4) as his posterity had not then an existence, they could not commit actual transgression. Sin is the transgression of the Law by a moral agent; and as the interpretation "because all have sinned" meets the argument of the apostle, and as the Greek favors that certainly as much as it does the other, it is to be preferred.​

I am astonished that you are so determined to distort these proof texts without a shred of supporting scholarship. It is intellectual suicide for anyone but an evolutionist who opposes creationism. I have seen this again and again in their treatment of the scientific literature but it is especially wrong when this disingenuous approach is applied to Scripture.

You need plenty of supporting scholarship to claim passages say all sinned in Adam when the text says nothing like that. So far you have not come up with anything. I am simply sticking to the text.

As for figurative interpetation of Rom 5, you keep forgetting Paul said this was a figurative interpetation of Adam.

No he didn't, he said:

5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.​

It is that bit about Adam as a figure of Christ that should let you know what is going on. Romans 5 is a comparison of Adam and Christ from verse 12 where Paul starts off therefore just as... all the way to verse 21 where he talks of as sin reigned.... grace also might reign... Everything in between is Paul discussing Adam figuratively.

When, therefore, the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam, it is in accordance not only with the nature of the case, but with the scriptural usage, to understand him to mean that we are regarded and treated as sinners on his account...It is almost universally conceded that this 12th verse contains the first member of a comparison which, in vs 18,19, is resumed and carried out. But in those verses it is distinctly taught that judgment came on all men on account of the offence of one man. This is therefore is Paul's own interpretation of what he meant when he said, 'all sinned'. They sinned in Adam. His sin was regarded as theirs. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans by Dr. Charles Hodge​

Bit of a mixed bag here. His comment that the comparison of Adam and Christ starts in verse 12 is what I have just said.

But the passage starts of 'the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam,' which the apostle plainly didn't. Hodge drank deep of Augustinian tradition and apparently thought that this was what Paul actually said. Paul never did. All his comments in the last part of the quote about what 'Paul's own interpetation' was, is based on an earnest belief Paul said all men sinned in Adam.

 

[Assyrian]

Barnes is one of many but clearly Barnes recognizes that Paul is coming from a literal interpretation of Genesis 3:6-7. Denying that this was Paul's interpretation does damage to the text.

It is nothing to do with interpreting Romans 5 literally or Genesis 3, neither passage even suggest we all sinned in Adam.

By one man ... - By means of one man; by the crime of one man. His act was the occasion of the introduction of all sin into all the world. The apostle here refers to the well known historical fact Gen 3:6-7, without any explanation of the mode or cause, of this. He adduced it as a fact that was well known; and evidently meant to speak of it not for the purpose of explaining the mode, or even of making this the leading or prominent topic in the discussion. (Barne's Commentary)​

Clearly Barnes took Gen 3:6-7 literally, I never doubted he did, but still he knew the bible doesn't say we all sinned in Adam.

Nope, no reference to all sinned in Adam in either of those.

It's just like distortions of the scientific literature, you just keep pointing out the facts.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)​

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).​

"By the one man’s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).​

"Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).​

"By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).​

And no matter how many ties you quote them they still won't say we all sinned in Adam. You were better of with Jamieson who could add in bits:

for that all have sinned—rather, "all sinned," that is, in that one man's first sin.​

Or Hodge who tells us:

'the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam,'​

But the scriptures itself must be a bit of a disappointment for you. No matter how often you quote these passages they will never say we all sinned in Adam.

Or do you think that if you repeat it often enough people will believe you?

The writer of these notes is quoting Barnes himself and trying to correct what he perceives as Barnes' theological mistakes.

Ok, so your solution to Romans 5:12 is to deny the clear meaning of the text.

No I was point out that the writer you quoted as Barnes was actually some busybody who produced a new version of Barnes Notes complete with his 'corrections'.

You claim that Augustine mistranslated it from the Latin even though it was written in Koine Greek.

You did read the bit where I showed you our earliest textual reference to the claim we all sinned in Adam, and it was Augustine quoting his Latin translation of Romans 5:12 not the koine Greek? You must have. I pointed this out to you repeatedly, yet you still insist on make pointless statements about it being written in Greek as though that answers your problem. It doesn't.

Your problem is that Paul did write it in koine Greek but Augustine got his 'we all sinned in Adam' from a Latin translation.

Oh well go on, keep saying 'it was written in Koine Greek', maybe you will convince yourself this is the answer.

Then when you are faced with sound exegesis for the original, dictionaries, commentaries and various other sources you just ignore them or claim they are mistaken.

I haven't come across any sound exegesis backing you claims yet.

No substantive reason for this mind you, just you claiming Barnes is mistaken.

It is statements like this that make me wonder if you actually understand plain English, or are just twisting any kind of answer together you think sounds good.

That bears as much resemblance to my discussion of Barnes and the guys who added all the notes to his commentary as you claim the bible says we all sinned in Adam.

What Barnes said, and the busy note writer in our commentaries was disagreeing with was:

All have sinned - ​

To sin is to transgress the Law of God; to do wrong. The apostle in this expression does not say that all have sinned in Adam, or that their nature has become corrupt, which is true, but which is not affirmed here; nor that the sin of Adam is imputed to them; but simply affirms that all people have sinned. He speaks evidently of the great universal fact that all people are sinners, He is not settling a metaphysical difficulty; nor does he speak of the condition of man as he comes into the world. He speaks as other men would; he addresses himself to the common sense of the world; and is discoursing of universal, well-known facts. Here is the fact - that all people experience calamity, condemnation, death. How is this to be accounted for? The answer is, "All have sinned." This is a sufficient answer; it meets the case. And as his design cannot be shown to be to discuss a metaphysical question about the nature of man, or about the character of infants, the passage should be interpreted according to his design, and should not be pressed to bear on that of which he says nothing, and to which the passage evidently has no reference. I understand it, therefore, as referring to the fact that people sin in their own persons, sin themselves - as, indeed, how can they sin in an other way? - and that therefore they die. If people maintain that it refers to any metaphysical properties of the nature of man, or to infants, they should not infer or suppose this, but should show distinctly that it is in the text. Where is there evidence of any such reference?​

You have abandoned Christian theology over your philosophical a priori assumptions. Had theology been of the slightest concern you would not have abandoned one of the most important theological questions involved.

How is pointing out Barne's view on the interpretation of Roman 12:5, me 'abandoning Christian theology'? Seriously Mark, you need to drop this debate you are starting to get irrational here.

This is one of the most important questions in Theology, and according to the answer we may be prepared to give, in the affirmative or negative, will be almost the entire complexion of our religious views. If the question be resolved in the affirmative, then what Adam did must be held as done by us, and the imputation of his guilt would seem to follow as a necessary consequence.​

1. That Adam sustained the character of representative of the human race; in other words, that he was the federal as well as natural head of his descendants, is obvious from the circumstances of the history in the book of Genesis. (Barnes)​

That is not Barnes, that is the busybody note writer.

Why can't you just show us your claims in scripture?

Assyrian: Actually verse 14 completely contradicts your 'all sinned in Adam' doctrine. Rom 5:14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. If everyone sinned in Adam, if we shared in and are guilty of his original sin, then that includes all the people before Moses. But Paul says their sin was not like the transgression of Adam. Sorry Mark they did not sin in Adam. Neither did we.

Mark: Given that I was quoting Romans 5:14 and you say nothing to contradict my point, I will consider the point conceded.


Assyrian: Given that I was quoting Romans 5:14 and you say nothing to contradict my point, I will consider the point conceded.

Mark: I refuted your point a dozen different ways. You on the other hand have yet to make a point, you just keep saying the same thing over and over and pretend that is an argument. You have abandoned the text and all Christian scholarship on the subject. You abandoned it in favor of an a priori assumption that Adam was a fictional character in a religious poem.

This is all talk. The less you have, the more you claim to have said. You never even attempted to answer my point about Romans 5:14.

Classic projection, Paul is saying Adam (the literal Adam) prefigures Christ. That is it, there is no need for a presupposition unless you intend to undermine the clear meaning of the text.

Given that Paul never say Adam is literal, only that his comparison of Adam and Christ is figurative, all you are doing is reading your literal interpetation of Adam into the text. Why not just step back and look at what the text actually say? At least then you might be able to come up with an argument from the test for you literal interpetation. It would be better than trying to address an issue of scripture with accusation of 'classic projection'.

And you are still missing the point

You are not making any point, you just keep chanting the mantra of the TE, 'It's all figurative'.

Classic projection, now mantras. Deal with the arguments Mark.

And if I say you are missing the point, why not listen and actually try to see if I am making a point other than the one you are arguing against?

The point that you are failing to get to grips with is that even if Adam is literal,

First Paul is clearly taking Adam literally, there is not question about that. You have twisted Paul's using Adam as a figure of Christ into Adam was a figure of speech. By the same token you could render Christ a figure of speech and frankly, it's a gross distortion.

It certainly is a gross distortion when it is not the point I am making. Paul says he is comparing Adam on an allegorical level with Christ. That does not make Christ and allegory, just the comparison. But that it fairly typical literalist reaction to dealing with the issue of metaphor in scripture. Argue against scriptural allegory and metaphor by saying if we do that, everything has to be metaphorical.

you can't take the descriptions in Romans 5 of Adam's sin and its consequences as a literal historical facts because Adam and his sin is being described figuratively to tell us about Christ. By the one man’s offense many died is as literal as Hagar being a mountain, or Jesus being a wandering rock following the Israelites after they were baptised into Moses.

You can say someone is as dumb as a box of rocks without meaning to say that they are rocks. Hagar was a literal person, Jesus was a literal person and Adam was a literal person. You are trying to blend the historical narrative with the figurative language and painting it all as figurative. No one with the slightest discernment would make that mistake.

Remember how I said 'even if Adam is literal'? You simply answered by flying off about Christ being a figure of speech too.

I am stepping over into your camp and basing what I say on 'even if Adam is literal'. Try to hold that idea in your head, and listen to what I am saying.

Even if he is literal, when Paul compares his with Christ as a figure of Christ, which is what Paul said he was doing here, then the figurative comparisons Paul is making about Adam are figurative. Adam may be literal, but you cannot assume the way Paul describes Adam, and the consequences of his sin, are literal.

If Adam is being describe as a figure of Christ, as Paul tells us, then the descriptions are figurative.

The figurative description is Adam applied to Christ, not vise versa.

So? I am talking about the figurative description of Adam.

Christ is the second Adam, not the second mankind, but the second federal head.

1Cor 15:22 so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
I am in Christ so are you. Christ includes all of redeemed mankind.

continued next post...

 

[Assyrian]

Just as the sin of Adam brought death on all of us and was imputed by the law of Moses, In Christ all are made alive and righteousness is imputed by faith.

Actually death spread to all of us because we all sinned, as Paul tells us in Romans 5:12, but you can describe it figuratively as 'the sin of Adam brought death on all of us', in a figurative comparison of Adam and Christ.

And none of these say we all sinned in Adam. Why do you keep repeating them as if they do? Do you have anything to back up this claim?

VERSE 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, etc. The force of δια τοῦτο, wherefore, has already been pointed out, when speaking of the connection of this passage with the preceding: 'It follows, from what has been said of the method of justification that as by one man all became sinners so by one are all constituted righteous.' This passage, therefore, is the summation of all that has gone before As (ὥσπε&#961, obviously indicates a comparison or parallel. There is however no corresponding clause beginning with so, to complete the sentence. Examples of similar incomplete comparisons may be found in Matthew 25:14, with ὥσπερ, and in 1 Timothy 1:3, with καθώς. It is however so obvious that the illustration begun in this verse is resumed, and fully stated in vers. 18, 19, that the vast majority of commentators agree that we must seek in those verses the clause which answers to this verse. The other explanations are unnecessary or unsatisfactory....​

No problem with what he says there.
Except of course it does nothing to back up you claim we all sinned in Adam.

...By one man sin entered into the world, διά εἷς ἄνθρωπος. These words clearly declare a causal relation between the one man, Adam, and the entrance of sin into the world. Benecke, who has revived the doctrine of the preexistence of souls, supposes that Adam was the leader of the spirits who in the preexistent state sinned, and were condemned to be born as men. Adam was therefore the cause of sin entering into the world, because he was the author of this ante-mundane apostasy. The Pelagian theory is, that Adam was the mere occasional cause of men becoming sinners. He was the first sinner, and others followed his example. Or, according to another form of the same general idea, his sin was the occasion of God's giving men up to sin. There was no real connection, either natural or judicial, between Adam's sin and the sinfulness of his posterity; but God determined that if the first man sinned, all other men should. This was a divine constitution, without there being any causal connection between the two events. Others again say that Adam was the efficient cause of the sinfulness of his race. He deteriorated either physically or morally the nature which he transmitted to his posterity. He was therefore, in the same sense, the cause of the sinfulness of the race, that a father who impairs his constitution is the cause of the feebleness of his children. Others push this idea one step farther, and say that Adam was the race. He was not only a man, but man. The whole race was in him, so that his act was the act of humanity. It was as much and as truly ours as his. Others say that the causal relation expressed by these words is that which exists between sin and punishment. It was the judicial cause or reason. All these views must come up at every step in the interpretation of this whole passage, for the explanation of each particular clause must be determined by the nature of the relation which is assumed to exist between Adam and his posterity. All that need be said here is, that the choice between these several explanations is not determined by the mere meaning of the words. All they assert is, that Adam was the cause of all men becoming sinners; but whether he was the occasional, the efficient, or, so to speak, the judicial cause, can only be determined by the nature of the case, the analogy of Scripture, and the context. One thing is clear - Adam was the cause of sin in a sense analogous to that in which Christ is the cause of righteousness.​

ROMANS CHAPTER 5:12-21​

You are not going to end up resorting to long cut and pastes are you? It you have a serious point some evidence we all sinned in Adam can't you simply tell us what it is. What has Hodge to say here? A long ream of different ideas Adam before finally getting to a claim that All that needs to be said (then why cut and paste such a long spiel?)
is the explanation is not determined by the mere meaning of the words...
That is not very encouraging if you are looking to Hodge for and exegesis of the meaning of the words.
Then he goes and reverses Paul's analogy, instead of Adam being a figurative picture of Christ, he uses Christ to tell us about the meaning of Adam. You yourself realised this was bogus. Mark: "The figurative description is Adam applied to Christ, not vise versa".


But as we have seen in your precious cut and paste Hodge is someone who believes "the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam" No wonder he ends up having to ignore the mere meaning of words and end up turning figurative descriptions on their head.

Lets leave out the long cut and pastes Mark. I don't mind word definitions and grammar, but I don't buy arguments from authority. Cut the long commentaries from people trying to justify their traditional theology. If they have a good point to make, take it on board and make the point yourself. But I would rather discuss what the word of God says, not listen to Hodge claiming Paul said all men sinned in Adam. Paul didn't. It was Augustine.

You have abandoned the text for your philosophical a priori assumptions.

I have been sticking to the text which never says we all sinned in Adam.

 

[mark kennedy]

You missed out the second part of Strong's definition:
διά A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through (in very wide applications, local, causal or occasional)

The channel of an act, which was the sin of Adam, with very wide applications, causal in the case. I didn't miss it.

Our peace with God is caused by Jesus Christ, it is the result of his work on Calvary. As Shernren has pointed out, Paul had a perfectly good preposition he used regularly when he wanted to stress the location of our salvation in (en) Christ.

Paul uses them both interchangably

Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by (dia) Jesus Christ to himself
Eph 1:6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein, he hath made us accepted in (ἐ&#957 the beloved.

Paul is giving the reason sin entered the world, as a result of the actions of one man, and the reason death came in, as a result of the sin. However if you want to interpret it locally, as a series of concentric channels, sin flowing through the middle of Adam and death flowing inside the sin, you still have to deal with a series of much stronger locational words in the rest of the verse.

Sin enters the world through Adam and death as a result. That requires a literal Adam, who literally sinned bringing the curse of death on the whole of his descendants. That dismisses the notion of Adam being a figure of speech.

G1519 εἰς eis ice A primary preposition; to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) ...

and from εἰς and ἔρχομαι to come or go
G1525 εἰσέρχομαι eiserchomai ice-er'-khom-ahee From G1519 and G2064; to enter (literally or figuratively): - X arise, come (in, into), enter in (-to), go in (through).

from διά and ἔρχομαι
G1330 διέρχομαι dierchomai dee-er'-khom-ahee
From G1223 and G2064; to traverse (literally): - come, depart, go (about, abroad, every where, over, through, throughout), pass (by, over, through, throughout), pierce through, travel, walk through.

I'm aware of the meaning of those words, I just have no idea what significance you attach to them.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through [διά] one man sin entered [εἰσέρχομαι] into [εἰς] the world,
and death through [διά] sin,
and so death spread [διέρχομαι] to [εἰς] all men,
because all sinned.

Yea, still waiting for a point here.

Paul isn't simply talking about one man's sin, but that through (even if you take it geographically) one man sin entered into the world.

He is talking about one man's sin, no matter how you take it. Unless you want to assume it's a figurative Adam which Paul clearly does not.

There is a much stronger geographic emphasis with the double εἰς preposition, both as a seperate word εἰς and in the compound εἰσέρχομαι. Sin came through one man and went into the world. It is only then Paul say and death through sin. Seemingly even here the emphasis is that sin which had come into the world kept producing death, rather than saying sin and death came through one man. Paul then describes death, which was the result of sin coming into the world, travelling throughout the world, to all men.

sin comes through one man
and comes into the world
death comes through sin
death spreads throughout to all men

Sin come into the world through Adam and death through sin, this is causal to death spreading to all men. The context demands it.

Then Paul gives us the reason death enters into every man - because all sinned.

Paul is crystal clear when connecting the sin of Adam to the fact that all sinned.

Paul says sin entered the world through one man. The rest of his discussion in this verse looks at what happened when sin came though one man and into the world. There isn't the slightest hint all men were inside that one man when he sinned and participating in that sin.

Yes there is, in fact it's a very ordinary way of expressing it. All men came from Adam, I don't really care if you believe that or not, the point is Paul did.

Not one of those verses, however many times you repeat them, says we all sinned in Adam.

I love that verse, there is a wonderful pun in the first phrase that translators can't seem to decide how to translate, is it 'by man', that is by mankind, death came? Or is it by 'a man'? My e-sword versions are equally divided on the subject, it says 'a man' according to the ESV, GNB, ISV and RSV, but is simply 'man' in the KJV LITV WEB and YLT.

Adam is still a proper name for a literal person, our first parent. That's what you don't like about it, the semantical hair splitting is irrelevant.

Of course this pun on ἄνθρωπος / man, a man, leads right into his use of the Hebrew name Adam / man to refer to the entire human race in the second part of the verse. We are all part of ἄνθρωπος mankind, we are all 'in Adam' today, and Paul says we die (present tense) 'in Adam'.

When God told Adam that he would day for eating the forbidden fruit, he said Adam would die. The phrase actually means, dieing you shall die, or you will die prematurely. The point being that our dieing is a very present process. The use of a present text is warranted by the context.

Even if you ignore the fact Paul uses the present tense in 1Cor 15:21 and make up a verse that says we all died in the past in Adam, you still aren't given a mechanism for all dying in Adam. Even your Romans quote says death came through the sin of one man, it does not say we all sinned in Adam.

You keep bringing up the phraseology as if there was some significance. The fact is that everything that is important about the verse in an origins debate is that Adam was our first parent. The original sin doctrine, while Pauline as a point of doctrine, is not a watershed issue. You have readily conceded every main point that supports Creationism as sound doctrine. If you don't like the phrase 'all sinned in Adam', don't use it.

Proper nouns can be figurative and Genesis tells Adam was God's name for the people he created, so there is nothing in Adam being a proper noun that say it can not refer to the human race here. Whereas Paul's use of the present tense, saying all die in Adam, that all are 'in Adam' now, rules out the the idea he was talking about a historical event.

No it doesn't, in fact it reinforces it. If Adam were some just some historical figure there would be no reason to speak of him in the present tense. It certainly wouldn't be of any interest if he was just a figure of speech. The fact is that the sin of Adam is in us all making the dieing in Adam a very present sense.

I am not arguing against a literal interpretation here, though neither of the passages can be taken literally.

All you are arguing against is a literal interpretation, that is all you care about.

I am saying that even if you take them literally, they don't say we all sinned in Adam.

You have yet to demonstrate how that phraseology is even remotely relevant.

I am left wondering do you care what scripture says.

You don't get to do that, discard the Scriptures and their clear meaning and then act like I'm the one who doesn't care.

It really doesn't seem to bother you that none of the passages you quote say anything like what you pretend them mean. Nowhere does Paul or any other writer in scripture even hint that we all sinned in Adam.

What's important is that Adam was a literal person, the first parent of all humanity, the federal head of the human race and the first cause of penal sin. That's what is important, not your semantical shell game.

I have shown you Where God calls the people he created Adam, and Paul speaks of us being 'in Adam' now. On the other hand you 'clear meaning of the text' involves quoting passages that don't say we all sinned in Adam and claiming they do.

You just keep sinking deeper and deeper into irrelevance.

All you have to do is show a passage which says we all sinned in Adam and you have won the argument, instead you just go on and on quoting passages which don't say anything like that.

I'll just let you keep talking in circles to you get dizzy and stop.

Indeed they have since Augustine said we all sinned in Adam.

Every main stream Protestant tradition has agreed with Augustine on the doctrine of original sin because of Paul. In fact, the Protestant tradition is actually leaning more heavily on the original sin doctrine. The Calvinists actually take it to an extreme.

I am just looking at what the text says, why don't you do the same?

No your not, your trying to make a literal person and a clear meaning fit your worldview.

If scripture was as crystal clear as you claim you wouldn't need to quote Calvin, Wesley, Barnes, Strong, and in fact you haven't quoted anything from them supporting the idea we all sinned in Adam, which is odd because as I said Wesley did accept that tradition, and I suspect Calvin did too. But why quote commentaries of men when we can simply look at the word of God?

Clearly I shouldn't have to but if the meaning of the text is in question there is a long list of resources that support me and refute you.

You claimed I was out of context quoting verses that say death comes from sin. The very first verse to mention the death coming through disobedience is hardly a tangent. Neither is it a tangent to mention that Adam did not literally die on the literal day he ate the fruit, when you say "Death through the sin of the first Adam, you can't get a figurative interpretation..."

That is based on a misreading of the text, it did not say that you will fall over and die the day you eat it. There are some subtleties and nuances in the original that while interesting, are not going to substantially alter the meaning. Adam ate and death followed, that is all there really is to it.

Sorry Mark, I don't see how this backs your claim I was taking 'death spread to all men because all sinned' out of context. It is a rather simple statement, easily understood, as long as you don't try to make it says things that are never found in scripture.

The context of Romans 5 directly ties the phrase 'all sinned' and the transgression of Adam. Now that you are getting more and more familiar with the original you are realizing that the language is not complicated, in fact it is straightforward. That is all I needed you to see, the doctrine is Pauline, not Catholic in origin.

Romans is full of different illustrations, of different aspects of the Gospel, I don't see why they should all be the same, and I certainly don't think your case is helped by Adam being the one Paul says he is taking figuratively.

It's important in an origins debate because of the significance Paul applies to the sin of Adam. Adam is a figure of Christ, that does not make him a figure of speech.

You mean the way Sarah and Hagar prefigured the gospel by being mountains?

No, and I am not saying that Adam was Christ. Hagar is used because she was a bond servant, not because she was a figure of speech.

You need to watch figurative interpretations, they can trip you up very easily. All you doing is bringing your preconception of a literal Adam into Paul's figurative description.

Now your heading back to your foregone conclusion. At the heart of the emphasis you want to say that Adam is just a figure of speech which is not what Paul is saying. Your running out of wiggle room.

Paul is talking figuratively, you can't read it literally. He might be talking about a literal Adam, but he could say the same thing if he interpreted Genesis allegorically. Anyway I am waiting to see how your 'logical progression' contradicts the simple meaning of [/SIZE]death spread to all men because all sinned.[/FONT]

He cannot be taken figuratively, Paul is speaking of Adam as being a literal, historical and crucial figure. Christ is never spoken of as the second David or the second Abraham. Christ is the second Adam because just as sin proceeded from Adam to all of humanity righteousness comes in Christ alone.

Paul is speaking to a body of believers that are primarily Jewish. This tells us something about how the first century Hebrew Christian interpreted Genesis. They viewed it as an historical narrative and Paul is speaking to them from that perspective.

Continued in next post...

I can hardly wait.

 

[mark kennedy]

Actually death spread to all of us because we all sinned, as Paul tells us in Romans 5:12, but you can describe it figuratively as 'the sin of Adam brought death on all of us', in a figurative comparison of Adam and Christ.

No you can't, you can take the comparison of Christ and Adam figuratively but not the literal Christ or Adam. It doesn't work that way.

No problem with what he says there.
Except of course it does nothing to back up you claim we all sinned in Adam.

There you go again, burying the text in your circular rationalizations.

You are not going to end up resorting to long cut and pastes are you? It you have a serious point some evidence we all sinned in Adam can't you simply tell us what it is. What has Hodge to say here? A long ream of different ideas Adam before finally getting to a claim that All that needs to be said (then why cut and paste such a long spiel?)
is the explanation is not determined by the mere meaning of the words...
That is not very encouraging if you are looking to Hodge for and exegesis of the meaning of the words.

Hodge, Barnes what difference does it make? The clear meaning comes out no matter how deep you go. That quote was actually meant to encourage you to look a little closer at the exegesis of the text. This was the clincher but you dismissed it too quickly, along with the important theological issues.

And death by sin; that is, death entered the world, men became subject to death, dia thV amartiaV by means of sin. Sin was the cause of death; not the mere occasional cause, not the efficient cause, but the ground or reason of its infliction. This passage, therefore, teaches that death is a penal evil, and not a consequence of the original constitution of man. (Hodge)​

Then he goes and reverses Paul's analogy, instead of Adam being a figurative picture of Christ, he uses Christ to tell us about the meaning of Adam. You yourself realised this was bogus. Mark: "The figurative description is Adam applied to Christ, not vise versa".

Nonsense, Adam prefigures Christ, that does not mean that the passage in Romans does not inform us about Adam.

But as we have seen in your precious cut and paste Hodge is someone who believes "the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam" No wonder he ends up having to ignore the mere meaning of words and end up turning figurative descriptions on their head.

As always, you are talking in generalities and dismissing sound exegesis because it supports me and refutes you.

Lets leave out the long cut and pastes Mark. I don't mind word definitions and grammar, but I don't buy arguments from authority. Cut the long commentaries from people trying to justify their traditional theology. If they have a good point to make, take it on board and make the point yourself. But I would rather discuss what the word of God says, not listen to Hodge claiming Paul said all men sinned in Adam. Paul didn't. It was Augustine.

Paul did, that is the point. Augustine did not invent the original sin doctrine, anymore then the Reformers invented Justification by faith alone. So far you have dismissed both Protestant and Catholic tradition as arguments from authority. Now you are left out there all by yourself insisting to deal only with me and strict dictionary definitions.

Ok, but remember you called the tune.

I have been sticking to the text which never says we all sinned in Adam.

That's what it says, you just keep playing this semantical shell game with the actual phrases. You reject Catholic theology and scholarship and you reject Reformation theology and how it applies to Romans 5:12. That clearly indicates a postmodernist view where the literal history of Scripture is basically discarded.

I have no problem discussing this on that level.

 

[Assyrian]

The channel of an act, which was the sin of Adam, with very wide applications, causal in the case. I didn't miss it.

So you are giving up your claim dia is interchangeable with en and that diaAdam in Romans 5 mean 'in Adam'?

Of course not.

Paul uses them both interchangably

Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by (dia) Jesus Christ to himself
Eph 1:6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein, he hath made us accepted in (ἐ&#957 the beloved.

I dealt with this bogus attempt to swap Paul's preposition in http://christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=41917394&postcount=357 You never replied to the post.

Sin enters the world through Adam and death as a result. That requires a literal Adam,

No it doesn't. It requires a literal human being, or literal human beings, to sin and bring death as a result. Whether the 'one man' was a literal historical person, or a figurative description of the human race, which is what the name adam means, the result is the same.

who literally sinned bringing the curse of death on the whole of his descendants. That dismisses the notion of Adam being a figure of speech.

Except Paul says death spread to all men because all sinned, not because the curse of Adam was passed to his descendants. Stick with scripture Mark.

G1519 εἰς eis ice A primary preposition; to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) ...

and from εἰς and ἔρχομαι to come or go
G1525 εἰσέρχομαι eiserchomai ice-er'-khom-ahee From G1519 and G2064; to enter (literally or figuratively): - X arise, come (in, into), enter in (-to), go in (through).

from διά and ἔρχομαι
G1330 διέρχομαι dierchomai dee-er'-khom-ahee
From G1223 and G2064; to traverse (literally): - come, depart, go (about, abroad, every where, over, through, throughout), pass (by, over, through, throughout), pierce through, travel, walk through.

I'm aware of the meaning of those words, I just have no idea what significance you attach to them.

I attach much more significance to Paul's plain teaching death spread to all men because all sinned which agrees with the teaching throughout the bible that the wages of sin is death, or the soul that sins that soul shall die.

But if you are going to try to spin some bogus positional meaning in Romans 5 by switching Paul's dia for en, you should pay attention to all the directional and positional prepositions Paul uses that completely contradict you preposition swap.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through [διά] one man sin entered [εἰσέρχομαι] into [εἰς] the world,
and death through [διά] sin,
and so death spread [διέρχομαι] to [εἰς] all men,
because all sinned.

Yea, still waiting for a point here.

You want to change the first dia into a positional en (instead of a 'through' or simply 'causal' which you seemed to admit was the point of the preposition in your first statement in the post) so that you can try to make Romans 5 say all men sin in Adam, but even if dia meant through, the effects had already come through Adam and spread out into the world and throughout, when death spread to all men died because all sinned. Paul's prepositions make nonsense of all sinned in Adam.

Paul isn't simply talking about one man's sin, but that through (even if you take it geographically) one man sin entered into the world.

He is talking about one man's sin, no matter how you take it. Unless you want to assume it's a figurative Adam which Paul clearly does not.

In spite of Paul saying he was treating Adam as a figure in the passage? Of course, what Paul actually says doesn't matter to you.

And even if Paul was talking about a literal Adam, by the time death spread to all men, it was because of their own sins. Read what he says.

Sin come into the world through Adam and death through sin, this is causal to death spreading to all men. The context demands it.

I would be more interested in what the text says than your unsupported claims of what the context demands. The causal part is sin came into the world through one man (literal or figurative) that is what the dia says. Before the 'one man' there was no sin in the world, it came in because of him. Paul gives another causal reason for death spreading to all men, because all sinned.

Paul is crystal clear when connecting the sin of Adam to the fact that all sinned.

When you say crystal clear, it usually means you don't have a scrap of evidence to support you claim, but of course that is the way it has to be read. You say Paul connected the sin of Adam to the fact that all sinned, but you don't actually say how it is connected or what the link is. This is just hand waving so you can ignore what Paul actually says.

Paul's connection was that Adam was the first, or figuratively the representative of the whole and brough sin intop the world. He does not say all sinned because of Adam, but that all died because all sinned. Let's stick to Paul's connections, not the traditions of men.

Paul says sin entered the world through one man. The rest of his discussion in this verse looks at what happened when sin came though one man and into the world. There isn't the slightest hint all men were inside that one man when he sinned and participating in that sin.

Yes there is, in fact it's a very ordinary way of expressing it. All men came from Adam, I don't really care if you believe that or not, the point is Paul did.

You would have to show that was what Paul believed first, but unless you have missing epistles you can call on, you don't have much hope there. Then you have to show that even if Paul believed we were all descended from Adam, Paul believed we actually existed inside Adam when he sinned, that we were morally aware inside Adam, that we actively participated in his sin when he ate the fruit and as a result sinned when Adam did. It is pure fantasy, without a shred of scriptural basis.

Not one of those verses, however many times you repeat them, says we all sinned in Adam.

I love that verse, there is a wonderful pun in the first phrase that translators can't seem to decide how to translate, is it 'by man', that is by mankind, death came? Or is it by 'a man'? My e-sword versions are equally divided on the subject, it says 'a man' according to the ESV, GNB, ISV and RSV, but is simply 'man' in the KJV LITV WEB and YLT.

Adam is still a proper name for a literal person, our first parent. That's what you don't like about it, the semantical hair splitting is irrelevant.

Complete failure to address a single point I made.

Of course this pun on ἄνθρωπος / man, a man, leads right into his use of the Hebrew name Adam / man to refer to the entire human race in the second part of the verse. We are all part of ἄνθρωπος mankind, we are all 'in Adam' today, and Paul says we die (present tense) 'in Adam'.

When God told Adam that he would day for eating the forbidden fruit, he said Adam would die. The phrase actually means, dieing you shall die, or you will die prematurely. The point being that our dieing is a very present process. The use of a present text is warranted by the context.

Again completely failing to address the point.

To which you added a complete mangling of the Hebrew text of Gen 2:17. The phrase does not mean 'dieing you shall die, or you will die prematurely'. The phrase is a common Hebrew idiom can be translated word for word as 'dying you shall die', but it does not mean 'dying you shall die (what ever that is) or 'die prematurely', it is a Hebrew idiom that means 'surely die'. Not only that, Adam was told he would surely die in the day he ate of the tree. That is what the hebrew means

You keep bringing up the phraseology as if there was some significance. The fact is that everything that is important about the verse in an origins debate is that Adam was our first parent.

The phraseology is significant, it is the bible after all and it show Paul talking about Adam in the present tense, and people being 'in Adam' in the present tense, which cannot be literal, rather than speaking of Adam as our first parent.

The original sin doctrine, while Pauline as a point of doctrine, is not a watershed issue. You have readily conceded every main point that supports Creationism as sound doctrine. If you don't like the phrase 'all sinned in Adam', don't use it.

I don't have a problem with people holding to an original sin doctrine, just your claim that TE somehow destroys the basis of the gosple because you think the bible says we all sinned in Adam.

No it doesn't, in fact it reinforces it. If Adam were some just some historical figure there would be no reason to speak of him in the present tense. It certainly wouldn't be of any interest if he was just a figure of speech. The fact is that the sin of Adam is in us all making the dieing in Adam a very present sense.

Any evidence from scripture that the sin of Adam is in us all? And there is a big difference between the sin of Adam being in us and us being 'in Adam', If Adam was a literal historical person who died and returned to the ground he came from thousands of years ago, we cannot be 'in Adam' anymore. That Adam is dead and gone a long time ago if he ever existed. The only way we can be 'in Adam' is if the phrase means 'in the human race'.

I am not arguing against a literal interpretation here, though neither of the passages can be taken literally.

All you are arguing against is a literal interpretation, that is all you care about.

If you find it easier to argue against a fantasy debate rather than the one I am taking part in go ahead.

I am saying that even if you take them literally, they don't say we all sinned in Adam.

You have yet to demonstrate how that phraseology is even remotely relevant.

The phrase we all sinned in Adam is your phrase, well yours and Augustine's. However Paul never said it, not in any of the epistles I have read or any of the verses you quote. It is not a question of taking them literally or not, Paul never said it.

I don't think Paul was being literal in Romans 5, but that does not matter to this issue. He never said we all sinned in Adam, literally or figuratively.

I am left wondering do you care what scripture says.

You don't get to do that, discard the Scriptures and their clear meaning and then act like I'm the one who doesn't care.

You don't. You have your traditions, and it doesn't matter what the bible actually says it must mean what your traditions say. You haven't shown the slightest interest in what the text actually means.

What's important is that Adam was a literal person, the first parent of all humanity, the federal head of the human race and the first cause of penal sin. That's what is important, not your semantical shell game.

Name calling aside, I don't see any basis for your claim in scripture. Death spread to all men because all sinned, not because Adam was first, though someone probably had to be, not because we are descended from Adam or whoever first sinned, but death spread to all men simply because all sinned.

 

[Assyrian]

Mark: Why do you keep denying the clear meaning of the text? You said the original sin doctrine was based on a bad translation, that is false. You say person named 'Adam' is a figure of mankind and that is false. Then you pretend that you have made an actual argument because you simply repeated the same false notion again and again as if that were a sound exegesis and that is false.

Assyrian: I have shown you Where God calls the people he created Adam, and Paul speaks of us being 'in Adam' now. On the other hand you 'clear meaning of the text' involves quoting passages that don't say we all sinned in Adam and claiming they do.

Mark: You just keep sinking deeper and deeper into irrelevance.

Complete failure to answer my points.

All you have to do is show a passage which says we all sinned in Adam and you have won the argument, instead you just go on and on quoting passages which don't say anything like that.

I'll just let you keep talking in circles to you get dizzy and stop.

I was wondering if this was your strategy. You don't have a passage that says we all sinned in Adam, so instead you run the conversation around in circles until I stop? Wouldn't it be simpler just to admit it's not in the bible?

Indeed they have since Augustine said we all sinned in Adam.

Every main stream Protestant tradition has agreed with Augustine on the doctrine of original sin because of Paul. In fact, the Protestant tradition is actually leaning more heavily on the original sin doctrine. The Calvinists actually take it to an extreme.

You have to show it is in Paul's writings first, before you can say it is 'because of Paul', otherwise it is just tradition that dates back to a bad translation of Romans 5:12. Even Calvin realised Augustine's translation was wrong and changed it to since, or seeing that all sinned, but he kept Augustine's teaching based on Romans 5:12. Tradition is funny that way.

Luther and calvin did a tremendous job, but you can't expect them to clear out every dodgy tradition. It doesn't mean we shouldn't when we realise we have been handed down traditions that have no basis in scripture.

No your not, your trying to make a literal person and a clear meaning fit your worldview.

Wishful thinking doesn't make it so. You are simply using ad homs because you cannot deal with my scriptural arguments, of provide a single scriptural basis for your own views.

Clearly I shouldn't have to but if the meaning of the text is in question there is a long list of resources that support me and refute you.

So the meaning isn't crystal clear? You need stronger arguments then to provide a sound basis for your doctrine. So far you haven't provided a scrap of evidence Paul said we all sinned in Adam. The fact that people like Wesley or Hodge believed this is what the bible says does not tell us anything other than the fact that the tradition is deeply rooted. What you need is them providing good scriptural arguments that we all sinned in Adam. But so far we haven't seen any.

That is based on a misreading of the text, it did not say that you will fall over and die the day you eat it. There are some subtleties and nuances in the original that while interesting, are not going to substantially alter the meaning. Adam ate and death followed, that is all there really is to it.

Actually that is exactly what the text means, 'you will surely die', and it says Adam would surely die the day he ate from the tree. No subtleties or nuances, it was a common Hebrew idiom that means 'surely die'.

The context of Romans 5 directly ties the phrase 'all sinned' and the transgression of Adam. Now that you are getting more and more familiar with the original you are realizing that the language is not complicated, in fact it is straightforward. That is all I needed you to see, the doctrine is Pauline, not Catholic in origin.

I know from the text that what Paul ties is 'the death passed to all men' to the 'because all sinned'.

It is actually Augustine's bad Latin translation that tied the 'all sinned' to Adam.

Rom 5:12 propterea sicut per
.-> unum hominem in hunc mundum peccatum intravit
|. et per peccatum mors
|.et ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit in
. <-quo omnes peccaverunt

(Douay Rheims) Wherefore as by
-> one man sin entered into this world
|.and by sin death:
|.and so death passed upon all men, in
.<- whom all have sinned.

It's not in the Paul's Greek but the idea lingers on.

It's important in an origins debate because of the significance Paul applies to the sin of Adam. Adam is a figure of Christ, that does not make him a figure of speech.

If Paul says Adam is a figure of Christ it tell us that what Paul is saying about Adam is figurative, otherwise it doesn't say whether Adam himself is actually real or as you dismissively put it 'a figure of speech'. Don't forget 'figure' is Paul's word.

You mean the way Sarah and Hagar prefigured the gospel by being mountains?

No, and I am not saying that Adam was Christ. Hagar is used because she was a bond servant, not because she was a figure of speech.

It still doesn't mean she was a mountain. You can't take figurative descriptions and think they are literal.

Now your heading back to your foregone conclusion. At the heart of the emphasis you want to say that Adam is just a figure of speech which is not what Paul is saying. Your running out of wiggle room.

Try answering the argument instead of 'appeal to motive' fallacies.

Paul is talking figuratively, you can't read it literally. He might be talking about a literal Adam, but he could say the same thing if he interpreted Genesis allegorically. Anyway I am waiting to see how your 'logical progression' contradicts the simple meaning of death spread to all men because all sinned.

He cannot be taken figuratively, Paul is speaking of Adam as being a literal, historical and crucial figure.

Paul says he is speaking figuratively.

Christ is never spoken of as the second David or the second Abraham. Christ is the second Adam because just as sin proceeded from Adam to all of humanity righteousness comes in Christ alone.

Christ is not spoken of as a second Abraham, but then again Adam is the only one Paul says he is describing figuratively in Romans. If Paul is speaking figuratively about Adam, you cannot think his relationship to sin literally matches Christ and righteousness. Adam was not God incarnate he did not have that kind of power, and Paul tell us he was describing him figuratively.

Paul is speaking to a body of believers that are primarily Jewish. This tells us something about how the first century Hebrew Christian interpreted Genesis. They viewed it as an historical narrative and Paul is speaking to them from that perspective.

You actually do have a good point here. Paul's figurative description of Adam fits beautifully into what we know of first century Jewish interpretations of Adam, Paul's is a Christian version of course. Philo a Helenistic Jew from Alexandria interpreted Adam allegorically and Josephus a priest from Jerusalem believed Adam was meant figuratively too.

Continued in next post...

I can hardly wait.

That is hilarious, especially when you skip my next two posts.

Actually death spread to all of us because we all sinned, as Paul tells us in Romans 5:12, but you can describe it figuratively as 'the sin of Adam brought death on all of us', in a figurative comparison of Adam and Christ.

No you can't, you can take the comparison of Christ and Adam figuratively but not the literal Christ or Adam. It doesn't work that way.

You can take figuratively statements about Adam, comparing him figuratively with Christ, because they are figurative.

There you go again, burying the text in your circular rationalizations.

Is it a circular rationalization to say you have provided no evidence the bible ever says we all sinned in Adam?

Hodge, Barnes what difference does it make? The clear meaning comes out no matter how deep you go. That quote was actually meant to encourage you to look a little closer at the exegesis of the text. This was the clincher but you dismissed it too quickly, along with the important theological issues.

I have looked at the text it does not say we all sinned in Adam, none of your references give any evidence that is what the text means, and Hodge actually claims it doesn't.

And death by sin; that is, death entered the world, men became subject to death, dia thV amartiaV by means of sin. Sin was the cause of death; not the mere occasional cause, not the efficient cause, but the ground or reason of its infliction. This passage, therefore, teaches that death is a penal evil, and not a consequence of the original constitution of man. (Hodge)

He says sin was the cause of death and that death is penal. I don't have a problem with that, though we might disagree on what kind of death. The death of the one man was the consequence of his sin and the spread of death to all men was because all sinned. There is no mention of we all sinned in Adam or any attempt to justify it, so I really don't see the point of your cut and paste.

Nonsense, Adam prefigures Christ, that does not mean that the passage in Romans does not inform us about Adam.

As much as Galatians tells us Sarah was a mountain.

But as we have seen in your precious cut and paste Hodge is someone who believes "the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam" No wonder he ends up having to ignore the mere meaning of words and end up turning figurative descriptions on their head.

As always, you are talking in generalities and dismissing sound exegesis because it supports me and refutes you.

How is it a generality to say Hodge believed "the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam"? You quoted his writing yourself. Here is a man who can write reams of nonsense ending in a claim the meaning of Romans 5 'is not determined by the mere meaning of the words' but never questions the possibility that his own traditions, that Paul said we all sinned in Adam, is nowhere in the bible. Show us some 'sound exegesis' first and we can discuss it. Do not think I will be impressed by you quoting someone who thinks Paul said we all sinned in Adam. Off course you agree with him. You believe Paul said it too.

But I would rather discuss what the word of God says, not listen to Hodge claiming Paul said all men sinned in Adam. Paul didn't. It was Augustine

Paul did, that is the point. Augustine did not invent the original sin doctrine, anymore then the Reformers invented Justification by faith alone. So far you have dismissed both Protestant and Catholic tradition as arguments from authority.

If Paul said all men sinned in Adam, show us where he said it. Otherwise Catholic and Protestant traditions that claim we sinned in Adam, come from Augustine who got it from his bad Latin translation. I am not a fan of tradition that cannot be found in scripture. That is why I left the Catholic Church, and I am certainly not going to adopt those tradition back again even if you say look at all the Protestants who believe it too. I am not going to accept it because you say it is in the bible, only if you can show it to me in the bible. You haven't been able to yet and I am not holding my breath.

Now you are left out there all by yourself insisting to deal only with me and strict dictionary definitions.

You are not moaning about dictionary definitions because Paul did not use the right words for you?

Ok, but remember you called the tune.

You are the one who said "excluding tradition and other human sources appeals to me".

I have been sticking to the text which never says we all sinned in Adam.

That's what it says, you just keep playing this semantical shell game with the actual phrases.

It does feel like a shell game at times. I ask where the bible says 'we all sinned in Adam' and you spin around a couple of shells, and claim it is there. I look at the verses, and no, there isn't a hint of 'we all sinned in Adam' under the shell. I ask you again and you give me some more empty shells. A shell game. You think I'll just get dizzy and stop, but I am doing fine and each time I keep showing how empty your theology is.

You reject Catholic theology and scholarship and you reject Reformation theology and how it applies to Romans 5:12. That clearly indicates a postmodernist view where the literal history of Scripture is basically discarded.

I have no problem discussing this on that level.

I have no problem being called postmodern, but I though my approach of laying aside ancient traditions and looking at what the scripture actually says, is simple biblical Christianity.

Happy New Year Everyone

 

[mark kennedy]

So you are giving up your claim dia is interchangeable with en and that diaAdam in Romans 5 mean 'in Adam'?

I'm saying it means the same thing.

I dealt with this bogus attempt to swap Paul's preposition in http://christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=41917394&postcount=357 You never replied to the post.

Never seen it but let's see what you got:

You can only say 'in Christ' is equivalent to 'through Christ' if you empty it of its local positional sense. That may be a valid interpetation for the 'in Christ' verses, though I think Paul is talking about us being 'in Christ' and having the riches of inheritance in him, spiritually, rather than simply being a flowery way of saying because of Christ. For me it is the key to understanding Pauline theology. Be that as it may, you can interpret the passages to mean 'because of' or 'through'. However, if you do you have lost any claim that all sinned 'in Adam' because we were all 'in Adam' when he sinned. If 'in' is equated to 'through' or 'by', it does not mean 'in' any more.

Of course it does, like I said they are used interchangeably. Sure, the context demands a different word here and there but your not forcing a point here, you splitting semantical hairs when you position is entirely presumptive.

Any while there is an abundance of 'in Christ' and 'in him' teaching, I only know of one verse that speaks of 'in Adam' and this is not a reference to what happened in the past, it is present tense. 1Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die. That is not saying we all died in the past when we were in Adam. People die now and are in Adam now, and are in Adam when they die. We can be 'in Christ' because he is God the Son and his Spirit fills us all, but Adam was only human, if he was ever a literal human being, he is long dead and returned to the ground, how can we be 'in Adam' today? It only makes sense if 'in Adam' means being human part of the human race God named Adam in the beginning (Gen 5:2).

The sin of Adam is still with us, so in that sense we are still, 'in Adam', it's a literary feature. There are limits to how far you can take Adam as a figure of Christ and Paul pretty much exhausted it in maybe half a dozen verses. Adam means the person specially created from dust in the opening chapters of Genesis. You know that and every dictionary definition for the word used in Romans 5 agrees on who, not what, Paul meant.

Your figurative interpretation is baseless.

No it doesn't. It requires a literal human being, or literal human beings, to sin and bring death as a result. Whether the 'one man' was a literal historical person, or a figurative description of the human race, which is what the name adam means, the result is the same.

It requires a literal person named Adam. Now the word can be interpreted mankind but a text without a context is a pretext. The Scriptures simply don't bend to worldly philosophies.

Except Paul says death spread to all men because all sinned, not because the curse of Adam was passed to his descendants. Stick with scripture Mark.

Read it in context Assyrian, Adam is clearly indicated as a literal person.

I attach much more significance to Paul's plain teaching death spread to all men because all sinned which agrees with the teaching throughout the bible that the wages of sin is death, or the soul that sins that soul shall die.

I attach more significance to the whole testimony of Scripture then an isolated verse taken out of context.

But if you are going to try to spin some bogus positional meaning in Romans 5 by switching Paul's dia for en, you should pay attention to all the directional and positional prepositions Paul uses that completely contradict you preposition swap.

I didn't introduce the preposition, nor did Paul. You brought it up and it's a misnomer.

You want to change the first dia into a positional en (instead of a 'through' or simply 'causal' which you seemed to admit was the point of the preposition in your first statement in the post) so that you can try to make Romans 5 say all men sin in Adam, but even if dia meant through, the effects had already come through Adam and spread out into the world and throughout, when death spread to all men died because all sinned. Paul's prepositions make nonsense of all sinned in Adam.

So your interpretation is supposed to make so much more sense. All men sin in 'mankind' which is how you would interpret 'Adam' in Romans 5?

In spite of Paul saying he was treating Adam as a figure in the passage? Of course, what Paul actually says doesn't matter to you.

He is treating Adam as a figure of Christ, not as a figure of speech. Paul does matter to me, he matters enough to stop you from distorting the clear meaning of the text. Paul is working from a literal interpretation of Genesis and you take 'figurative' to mean something that would never have occurred to Paul and you know it.

And even if Paul was talking about a literal Adam, by the time death spread to all men, it was because of their own sins. Read what he says.

I know what he says and he did not subscribe to a modernist interpretation of Genesis.

I would be more interested in what the text says than your unsupported claims of what the context demands. The causal part is sin came into the world through one man (literal or figurative) that is what the dia says. Before the 'one man' there was no sin in the world, it came in because of him. Paul gives another causal reason for death spreading to all men, because all sinned.

Taken in context the transgression of Adam is causal and again I know you are aware of that. Your interpretation is meaningless, if Paul meant mankind he would use anthropos, not adam. He is clearly using a proper name, not a figure of speech. This person is used as a prefigure of Christ.

When you say crystal clear, it usually means you don't have a scrap of evidence to support you claim, but of course that is the way it has to be read. You say Paul connected the sin of Adam to the fact that all sinned, but you don't actually say how it is connected or what the link is. This is just hand waving so you can ignore what Paul actually says.

I have all the evidence I need, dictionaries, commentaries and the content of the original. You on the other hand have rejected every exegetical treatment of the text presented and then pretend that I'm the one without support. That is what I hate about evolution, it distorts and conflates the evidence with a vengeance.

Paul's connection was that Adam was the first, or figuratively the representative of the whole and brough sin intop the world. He does not say all sinned because of Adam, but that all died because all sinned. Let's stick to Paul's connections, not the traditions of men.

Nonsense, this is what he says:

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).
"By the one man’s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).
"Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).
"By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor 15:21)

For Adam was first formed, then Eve. (1 Tim 2:13)
​

Not once did he hint that Adam and Eve are figures of speech, it is a modernist interpretation that tramples the clear meaning of the text under foot.

You would have to show that was what Paul believed first, but unless you have missing epistles you can call on, you don't have much hope there. Then you have to show that even if Paul believed we were all descended from Adam, Paul believed we actually existed inside Adam when he sinned, that we were morally aware inside Adam, that we actively participated in his sin when he ate the fruit and as a result sinned when Adam did. It is pure fantasy, without a shred of scriptural basis.

No sir, it is you who are begging the question of proof on your hands and knees. Your twisting the Scriptures and beginning an attack that always fails. You are trying to change the meaning of Scripture to conform to you naturalistic assumptions. I was doing expositional studies 20 years before I ever gave this Creation/evolution nonsense a second thought.

Complete failure to address a single point I made.

You have failed to make a single point.

Again completely failing to address the point.

Keep dancing and maybe the ice won't break.

To which you added a complete mangling of the Hebrew text of Gen 2:17. The phrase does not mean 'dieing you shall die, or you will die prematurely'. The phrase is a common Hebrew idiom can be translated word for word as 'dying you shall die', but it does not mean 'dying you shall die (what ever that is) or 'die prematurely', it is a Hebrew idiom that means 'surely die'. Not only that, Adam was told he would surely die in the day he ate of the tree. That is what the hebrew means

I am sick and tired of you playing these childish games.

The Englishman's Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the Old Testament

It means "dying you shall die.", not whatever you think it means. Why don't you get a legitimate resource and support your bogus assertions.

The phraseology is significant, it is the bible after all and it show Paul talking about Adam in the present tense, and people being 'in Adam' in the present tense, which cannot be literal, rather than speaking of Adam as our first parent.

There you go again, pontificating about things you do not understand, or care about for that matter.

I don't have a problem with people holding to an original sin doctrine, just your claim that TE somehow destroys the basis of the gosple because you think the bible says we all sinned in Adam.

My biggest problem with TE is that they trample the Scriptures under foot. I have often said and still believe, that if you take the first 11 chapters of Genesis figuratively it makes very little difference. I could easily dismiss those chapters as hyperbole and never give it a second thought.

The bottom line is I can't because it doesn't stop there and that is why you guys do this full court press.

Any evidence from scripture that the sin of Adam is in us all? And there is a big difference between the sin of Adam being in us and us being 'in Adam', If Adam was a literal historical person who died and returned to the ground he came from thousands of years ago, we cannot be 'in Adam' anymore. That Adam is dead and gone a long time ago if he ever existed. The only way we can be 'in Adam' is if the phrase means 'in the human race'.

The fact is that there is no difference. Adam is dead, the literal father of the human race died for his transgression. We inherit that sin and that is the meaning of 'in Adam we all sinned'.

If you find it easier to argue against a fantasy debate rather than the one I am taking part in go ahead.

I know what you are getting at, this isn't my first rodeo. I know what you are trying to do and why and it isn't going to work. I don't compromise with a priori, naturalistic assumptions.

The phrase we all sinned in Adam is your phrase, well yours and Augustine's. However Paul never said it, not in any of the epistles I have read or any of the verses you quote. It is not a question of taking them literally or not, Paul never said it.

As if chanting your mantra will ever change the meaning of the Pauline doctrine of original sin.

I don't think Paul was being literal in Romans 5, but that does not matter to this issue. He never said we all sinned in Adam, literally or figuratively.

It does matter that Paul is being literal, that is all you care about.

You don't. You have your traditions, and it doesn't matter what the bible actually says it must mean what your traditions say. You haven't shown the slightest interest in what the text actually means.

I have 2,000 years of Christian scholarship backing me, you have your a priori assumption. It doesn't matter to me how you interpret it because you have no substantive support. You have dismissed every exegetical treatment of the text and expect me to accept your opinion over Christian scholarship and it's not going to happen.

Name calling aside, I don't see any basis for your claim in scripture. Death spread to all men because all sinned, not because Adam was first, though someone probably had to be, not because we are descended from Adam or whoever first sinned, but death spread to all men simply because all sinned.

A text without a context is a pretext, in your case it's an a priori assumption.

 

[mark kennedy]

Complete failure to answer my points.

Complete failure to actually make one.

I was wondering if this was your strategy. You don't have a passage that says we all sinned in Adam, so instead you run the conversation around in circles until I stop? Wouldn't it be simpler just to admit it's not in the bible?

No, I'll just let you argue in circles since that is all you have.

You have to show it is in Paul's writings first, before you can say it is 'because of Paul', otherwise it is just tradition that dates back to a bad translation of Romans 5:12. Even Calvin realised Augustine's translation was wrong and changed it to since, or seeing that all sinned, but he kept Augustine's teaching based on Romans 5:12. Tradition is funny that way.

First of all it's not based on a bad translation, that is absurd and baseless.

Luther and calvin did a tremendous job, but you can't expect them to clear out every dodgy tradition. It doesn't mean we shouldn't when we realise we have been handed down traditions that have no basis in scripture.

You probably don't realize the Calvin was instrumental in producing the Geneva Bible 50 years before the KJV. You are probably also clueless that Luther was personal friends with William Tyndall or maybe just don't care.

Wishful thinking doesn't make it so. You are simply using ad homs because you cannot deal with my scriptural arguments, of provide a single scriptural basis for your own views.

You abandoned the exegetical treatment of the text in favor of this childish banter. You support your statements with nothing but you rationalizations are ad hominem attacks. I have long held to the doctrine of Solo Scriptura and certainly wouldn't dream of abandoning it in a debate with a Darwinian.

So the meaning isn't crystal clear? You need stronger arguments then to provide a sound basis for your doctrine. So far you haven't provided a scrap of evidence Paul said we all sinned in Adam. The fact that people like Wesley or Hodge believed this is what the bible says does not tell us anything other than the fact that the tradition is deeply rooted. What you need is them providing good scriptural arguments that we all sinned in Adam. But so far we haven't seen any.

On the contrary, I have made my case based on Christian scholarship that spans the centuries. You are advocating a modernist interpretation that is really just a distortion based on naturalistic a priori assumptions

Actually that is exactly what the text means, 'you will surely die', and it says Adam would surely die the day he ate from the tree. No subtleties or nuances, it was a common Hebrew idiom that means 'surely die'.

Look it up or you will probably never realize just how foolish that statement is.

I know from the text that what Paul ties is 'the death passed to all men' to the 'because all sinned'.

Because 'by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin'. You really have to quit jerking phrases out of their proper context.

It is actually Augustine's bad Latin translation that tied the 'all sinned' to Adam.

That might work on people who don't know the difference.

Rom 5:12 propterea sicut per
.-> unum hominem in hunc mundum peccatum intravit
|. et per peccatum mors
|.et ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit in
. <-quo omnes peccaverunt

(Douay Rheims) Wherefore as by
-> one man sin entered into this world
|.and by sin death:
|.and so death passed upon all men, in
.<- whom all have sinned.

It's not in the Paul's Greek but the idea lingers on.

A literal Adam, the father of mankind, specially created, who sinned and brought death and sin on all mankind is not based on Augustine. It is a Pauline doctrine based on a literal interpretation of Genesis.

If Paul says Adam is a figure of Christ it tell us that what Paul is saying about Adam is figurative, otherwise it doesn't say whether Adam himself is actually real or as you dismissively put it 'a figure of speech'. Don't forget 'figure' is Paul's word.

Don't forget that Paul used that word in a context you have distorted beyond recognition.

It still doesn't mean she was a mountain. You can't take figurative descriptions and think they are literal.

How many times do I have to refute this superficial rhetoric.

Try answering the argument instead of 'appeal to motive' fallacies.

You don't have an argument.

Paul says he is speaking figuratively.

Paul says Adam was a figure of Christ, that does not mean he is not a literal person. You are really wasting a lot of time pretending to make a point here.

Christ is not spoken of as a second Abraham, but then again Adam is the only one Paul says he is describing figuratively in Romans. If Paul is speaking figuratively about Adam, you cannot think his relationship to sin literally matches Christ and righteousness. Adam was not God incarnate he did not have that kind of power, and Paul tell us he was describing him figuratively.

He was using the literal Adam as a figure of Christ. That's all there is, there is no more.

You actually do have a good point here. Paul's figurative description of Adam fits beautifully into what we know of first century Jewish interpretations of Adam, Paul's is a Christian version of course. Philo a Helenistic Jew from Alexandria interpreted Adam allegorically and Josephus a priest from Jerusalem believed Adam was meant figuratively too.

Show me your sources, I'm tired of looking things up just to have them ignored or dismissed.

That is hilarious, especially when you skip my next two posts.

Whatever...

You can take figuratively statements about Adam, comparing him figuratively with Christ, because they are figurative.

I take the literal Adam as a figure of Christ.

Is it a circular rationalization to say you have provided no evidence the bible ever says we all sinned in Adam?

The phrase, 'by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin', means the same thing.

I have looked at the text it does not say we all sinned in Adam, none of your references give any evidence that is what the text means, and Hodge actually claims it doesn't.

Don't dismiss Hodge and then appeal to him, I really don't have the patience for that.

He says sin was the cause of death and that death is penal. I don't have a problem with that, though we might disagree on what kind of death. The death of the one man was the consequence of his sin and the spread of death to all men was because all sinned. There is no mention of we all sinned in Adam or any attempt to justify it, so I really don't see the point of your cut and paste.

From the title of the exegetical work you dismissed:

FROM VERSE 1 TO 11, INCLUSIVE, THE APOSTLE DEDUCES SOME OF THE MORE OBVIOUS AND CONSOLATORY INFERENCES FROM THE DOCTRINE OF GRATUITOUS JUSTIFICATION. FROM THE 12TH VERSE TO THE END, HE ILLUSTRATES HIS GREAT PRINCIPLE OF THE IMPUTATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, OR THE REGARDING AND TREATING THE MANY AS RIGHTEOUS, ON ACCOUNT OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN, CHRIST JESUS, BY A REFERENCE TO THE FALL OF ALL MEN IN ADAM.​

As much as Galatians tells us Sarah was a mountain.

So you are saying that mankind was a figure of Christ, gotcha

How is it a generality to say Hodge believed "the apostle says that all men sinned in Adam"? You quoted his writing yourself. Here is a man who can write reams of nonsense ending in a claim the meaning of Romans 5 'is not determined by the mere meaning of the words' but never questions the possibility that his own traditions, that Paul said we all sinned in Adam, is nowhere in the bible. Show us some 'sound exegesis' first and we can discuss it. Do not think I will be impressed by you quoting someone who thinks Paul said we all sinned in Adam. Off course you agree with him. You believe Paul said it too.

I know Paul said it, it's obvious in the English translation, in the original and in the minds of Christian scholars down through the centuries. Adam is only considered a figure of speech to modernists who don't care what Paul actually said or meant.

If Paul said all men sinned in Adam, show us where he said it. Otherwise Catholic and Protestant traditions that claim we sinned in Adam, come from Augustine who got it from his bad Latin translation. I am not a fan of tradition that cannot be found in scripture. That is why I left the Catholic Church, and I am certainly not going to adopt those tradition back again even if you say look at all the Protestants who believe it too. I am not going to accept it because you say it is in the bible, only if you can show it to me in the bible. You haven't been able to yet and I am not holding my breath.

Once again, the Latin translation has nothing to do with it. You keep chanting that but there is not an ounce of substantive proof backing your claim. It's based on the Koine Greek and I really don't care how Augustine translated it.

You are not moaning about dictionary definitions because Paul did not use the right words for you?

That is a meaningless rant.

You are the one who said "excluding tradition and other human sources appeals to me".

The only alternative being you, it not only appeals to me but is preferred.

It does feel like a shell game at times. I ask where the bible says 'we all sinned in Adam' and you spin around a couple of shells, and claim it is there. I look at the verses, and no, there isn't a hint of 'we all sinned in Adam' under the shell. I ask you again and you give me some more empty shells. A shell game. You think I'll just get dizzy and stop, but I am doing fine and each time I keep showing how empty your theology is.

And I keep telling you, right here:

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).
"By the one man&#8217;s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).
"Through one man&#8217;s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).
"By one man&#8217;s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).​

I have no problem being called postmodern, but I though my approach of laying aside ancient traditions and looking at what the scripture actually says, is simple biblical Christianity.

What you have done is lay aside traditional Christianity for modernist philosophy. There is nothing Biblical about it.

 

[Assyrian]

A text without a context is a pretext

Where does that leave a doctrine without even a text?

So you are giving up your claim dia is interchangeable with en and that dia Adam in Romans 5 mean 'in Adam'?

I'm saying it means the same thing.

dia Adam does not mean the same as en Adam, not unless both are causal. But if they are causal neither of them mean 'in Adam'.

Never seen it but let's see what you got:
Of course it does, like I said they are used interchangeably. Sure, the context demands a different word here and there but your not forcing a point here, you splitting semantical hairs when you position is entirely presumptive.

It still means that if you say dia means the same as en neither of them are positional, they are simply causal. There is no 'in Adam' meaning which is what you are trying so desperately to find in scripture.

The sin of Adam is still with us, so in that sense we are still, 'in Adam', it's a literary feature. [/quote]
I think the word you are looking for is 'metaphorical'.

There are limits to how far you can take Adam as a figure of Christ and Paul pretty much exhausted it in maybe half a dozen verses. Adam means the person specially created from dust in the opening chapters of Genesis.

I am sure there is no limit to the rich treasury of scriptural imagery you can ignore if you shut your eyes hard enough. Don't forget the allegorical applications of we have already come across, 1Tim 2:12-15 Adam and Eve being used as an allegorical lesson on the relationship between men and women, 2Cor 11:3 Eve as an allegory of the church in danger of being lead astray instead of being a pure virgin betroth to Christ. Eve being formed 'bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh' from Adam's rib as an allegorical picture of the sexual union in marriage Matt 19:5&6, Mark 10:8, 1Cor 6:16 and in Eph 5:31 this is taken as an 'even deeper mystery' an allegorical picture of Christ and the Church.

You know that and every dictionary definition for the word used in Romans 5 agrees on who, not what, Paul meant.
Your figurative interpretation is baseless.

Dictionary definitions don't tell us the meaning of allegories and metaphors. There is nothing in the dictionary definition that tells us Hagar was a mountain, or that seed was the word of God.

It requires a literal person named Adam. Now the word can be interpreted mankind but a text without a context is a pretext. The Scriptures simply don't bend to worldly philosophies.

I think the worldly philosophy that is causing you the most problems is the scientific materialism that make you shut you eyes to all the rich allegory the bible loves so much and insist the only possible thing they could mean is you literal interpetation.

Paul's discussions in Rom 5 and 1Cor 15 don't need a literal Adam, they just need the text of Genesis. Perhaps Paul though it was meant literally too, but his discussions about Adam are figurative, and tell us he thought the text could be understood figuratively. That only requires a figurative Genesis.

Don't confuse your literal interpetation of Genesis as 'context'.

Except Paul says death spread to all men because all sinned, not because the curse of Adam was passed to his descendants. Stick with scripture Mark.

Read it in context Assyrian, Adam is clearly indicated as a literal person.

Whether he is literal or not, the cause given for death spreading to all men is because all sinned not because the curse of Adam was passed on to his descendants.

I attach more significance to the whole testimony of Scripture then an isolated verse taken out of context.

The whole testimony of scripture doesn't support your interpetation either. Or at least, if it does, you haven't shown us where. As far as I can see your 'whole testimony of scripture' is simply the Augustinian Original Sin interpretive framework you read into scripture. You interpret what you read in terms of your original sin doctrine and think that is the scriptural context. But 'we all sinned in Adam' simply isn't there and no one read it into scripture before Augustine got it from a dodgy Latin translation.'

I didn't introduce the preposition, nor did Paul. You brought it up and it's a misnomer.

Paul used prepositions, you use propositions to when you say 'we all sinned 'in' Adam', or whne you claim 'in' means the same as 'through'. Unfortunately Paul uses the wrong prepositions for you. I would suggest you change your interpretation to fit the prepositions Paul actually uses rather than try to change the meaning of Paul's prepositions to fit your theology.

So your interpretation is supposed to make so much more sense. All men sin in 'mankind' which is how you would interpret 'Adam' in Romans 5?

Paul is taking an allegorical description of how mankind fell in the beginning, and showing how it compares and contrasts with Christ. The story of Adam's condemnation is our condemnation, in that allegorical description of our fall, we are judged and shown to be sinners, just as in Christ we are justified and made righteous. Just as Adam's sin brought death in the story and shows how our own sin brings death to all of us, Christ bring life. Just as sin reigns in our lives producing death, in Christ grace reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life.

It doesn't matter if Adam was a figurative picture of mankind to start with, or the first individual whose sin and condemnation shows what all who came after him have done too. Paul takes the story of Adam and uses it figuratively to contrast all we have in Christ.

But there is no hint of the curse of sin being passed down to his descendants, or even a hint that what Paul says has anything to do with us being Adam's descendants. Nor is there the slightest suggestion 'we all sinned in Adam'.

In spite of Paul saying he was treating Adam as a figure in the passage? Of course, what Paul actually says doesn't matter to you.

He is treating Adam as a figure of Christ, not as a figure of speech.

Treating Adam as a figure means Paul's description are figurative. You try to avoid the point by saying 'Adam is not a figure of speech'. That is just a red herring. What matters is that Paul is telling us his descriptions of Adam are figurative and you are trying to take Paul's descriptions literally. I really don't see how you can care much about what Paul says when he tells us he is speaking figuratively, and you keep trying to ignore the fact.

Paul does matter to me, he matters enough to stop you from distorting the clear meaning of the text.

You mean by swapping the prepositions around and claiming he says we all sinned in Adam when Paul never even hints at such a thing, even if you interpret everything literally?

Paul is working from a literal interpretation of Genesis and you take 'figurative' to mean something that would never have occurred to Paul and you know it.

Obviously you don't know much about Jewish allegorical interpretation in the first century.

And even if Paul was talking about a literal Adam, by the time death spread to all men, it was because of their own sins. Read what he says.

I know what he says and he did not subscribe to a modernist interpretation of Genesis.

Nothing modernist about it. Paul said death spread to all men because all sinned. That doesn't require modernism to understand, all it requires is you read what it say without trying to pretend it really means we all sinned in Adam instead.

Taken in context the transgression of Adam is causal and again I know you are aware of that. Your interpretation is meaningless, if Paul meant mankind he would use anthropos, not adam. He is clearly using a proper name, not a figure of speech. This person is used as a prefigure of Christ.

He did use anthropos. Look at the text. His whole discussing of the entry of sin into the world and death spreading to all men, he uses anthropos. He doesn't mention Adam until verse 14, you know the one where he says he is using Adam as a figure of Christ.

Even if you take the one man (anthropos) to mean the historical Adam, he says the cause of death spreading to all men (anthropos again) is because all sinned. Read what Paul says. He gives a series of causal relationships, don't mix them up. Sin entering the world was caused by one man, death was caused by sin, and death spreading to all men was caused by all sinning.

I have all the evidence I need, dictionaries, commentaries and the content of the original. You on the other hand have rejected every exegetical treatment of the text presented and then pretend that I'm the one without support. That is what I hate about evolution, it distorts and conflates the evidence with a vengeance.

I am still waiting for the slightest bit of evidence the bible says we all sinned in Adam. You dictionaries don't say it. The original text certainly doesn't and all you have given are some commentaries where people throw in 'we all sinned in Adam' into the text without the slightest justification. Certainly you haven't come up with a single exegetical argument you could support in discussion. Justify the doctrine, or drop it as the unscriptural baggage it is, don't just make lying accusations about distorting the evidence. You don't have any evidence.

Mark: Paul is crystal clear when connecting the sin of Adam to the fact that all sinned.

Assyrian: Paul's connection was that Adam was the first, or figuratively the representative of the whole and brought sin into the world. He does not say all sinned because of Adam, but that all died because all sinned. Let's stick to Paul's connections, not the traditions of men.

Nonsense, this is what he says:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)
"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).
"By the one man’s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).
"Through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).
"By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor 15:21)
For Adam was first formed, then Eve. (1 Tim 2:13)
Not once did he hint that Adam and Eve are figures of speech, it is a modernist interpretation that tramples the clear meaning of the text under foot.

That is so funny. You claim Paul connects the sin of Adam to the fact that all sinned, I show you the actual connection he makes. You reply with a cry of 'Nonsense', and run off on a red herring about Adam and Eve being figure of speech.

You yourself quoted the Holman Bible Dictionary about the use of Adam in the NT, which said that in Romans 5 and 1Cor 15 Adam was being used as a type or symbol. I looked at your 1Tim 2 reference as well in my reply and showed it was allegorical too. Of course you never replied.

All you can do is waffle about Adam not being a figure of speech. No he is just interpreted allegorically. Whether there is a historical meaning behind the NT allegories we are not told. All we see are the allegories. Of course that means the most important thing about Adam and Eve for us as Christians are the allegorical meanings of the story, not any possible history.

No sir, it is you who are begging the question of proof on your hands and knees. Your twisting the Scriptures and beginning an attack that always fails. You are trying to change the meaning of Scripture to conform to you naturalistic assumptions. I was doing expositional studies 20 years before I ever gave this Creation/evolution nonsense a second thought.

So where does scripture say we all sinned in Adam? Unless you can show that all your claims of me twisting scripture are hot air. You haven't shown where my exegesis is wrong, while I point out every wild claim of your that doesn't fit scripture by showing what the bible actually says. Less hot air Mark and more scriptural backing please.

You have failed to make a single point.

Keep dancing and maybe the ice won't break.

Just track back through the posts to where you waffled in reply to my point about the translation of anthropos in 1Cor 15:21.

 

[Assyrian]

Part 2

I am sick and tired of you playing these childish games.
The Englishman's Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the Old Testament
It means "dying you shall die.", not whatever you think it means. Why don't you get a legitimate resource and support your bogus assertions.

That is not what the words mean. It may be a word for word rendition of the Hebrew, but the Hebrew itself is an construction that means 'you shall surely die'. Look at the Concordance you quote. The phrase is used again and again in scripture and is translated 'surely die' too. There is a reason for that, It is what the phrase means. It does not mean 'dying you shall die', which is a meaningless bunch of words, it does not mean anything you might want to twist 'dying you shall die' into either, like die prematurely. The construction stresses and strengthens the meaning of the verb, die become surely die.

William Gesenius Hebrew Grammar​

The infinitive absolute used before the verb to strengthen the verbal idea, i.e. to emphasize in this way either the certainty (especially in the case of threats) or the forcibleness and completeness of an occurrence. In English, such an infinitive is mostly expressed by a corresponding adverb, but sometimes merely by putting greater stress on the verb; e.g. Gn 2:17&#1502;&#1493;&#1514; &#1514;&#1502;&#1493;&#1514; thou shalt surely die, cf. 18:10, 18, 22:17, 28:22, 1 S 9:6 (cometh surely to pass); 24:21, Am 5:5, 7:17, Hb 2:3, Zc 11:17; with the infinitive strengthened by &#1488;&#1498; Gn 44:28 (but 27:30 and Jacob was yet scarce gone out, &c.); Gn 43:3 &#1492;&#1506;&#1491; &#1492;&#1506;&#1491; &#1489;&#1504;&#1493; he did solemnly protest unto us; 1 S 20:6 &#1504;&#1513;&#1473;&#1488;&#1500; &#1504;&#1513;&#1473;&#1488;&#1500; David earnestly asked leave of me; David earnestly asked leave of me; Jos 17:13, Ju 1:28 &#1493;&#1492;&#1493;&#1512;&#1497;&#1513;&#1473; &#1500;&#1488; &#1492;&#1493;&#1512;&#1497;&#1513;&#1473;&#1493; and did not utterly drive them out; especially typical instances are Am 9:8 I will destroy it from off the face of the earth &#1488;&#1508;&#1505; &#1499;&#1497; &#1500;&#1488; &#1492;&#1513;&#1473;&#1502;&#1497;&#1491; &#1488;&#1513;&#1473;&#1502;&#1497;&#1491; saving that I will not utterly destroy, &c.; Jer 30:11 and will in no wise leave thee unpunished; cf. further Gn 20:18, 1 K 3:26, Jo 1:7, Jb 13:5. ​

The phraseology is significant, it is the bible after all and it show Paul talking about Adam in the present tense, and people being 'in Adam' in the present tense, which cannot be literal, rather than speaking of Adam as our first parent.

There you go again, pontificating about things you do not understand, or care about for that matter.

I am the one talking about what Paul actually said, which of us is doing the pontificating?

My biggest problem with TE is that they trample the Scriptures under foot. I have often said and still believe, that if you take the first 11 chapters of Genesis figuratively it makes very little difference. I could easily dismiss those chapters as hyperbole and never give it a second thought.
The bottom line is I can't because it doesn't stop there and that is why you guys do this full court press.
The fact is that there is no difference. Adam is dead, the literal father of the human race died for his transgression. We inherit that sin and that is the meaning of 'in Adam we all sinned'.

'In Adam we all sinned' isn't in the bible, so it really does make no difference trying to explain its real meaning as if it were God's word. It's Augustine.

Which is worse treating a passage figuratively which Paul gave figurative interpretations of, or adding in bits like in Adam we sinned, that Paul never mentioned, changing the tense of his verbs, swapping his prepositions, and generally not caring a whit what he actually said?

Jesus never warned people against figurative interpretations, he did warn against making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on
Mark 7:13.

If you find it easier to argue against a fantasy debate rather than the one I am taking part in go ahead.

I know what you are getting at, this isn't my first rodeo. I know what you are trying to do and why and it isn't going to work. I don't compromise with a priori, naturalistic assumptions.

Or engage in rational debate with what the other person actually says. I suppose it make sense, in a weird sort of way, you treat my arguments with the same lack of reality as you treat Paul's writing.

As if chanting your mantra will ever change the meaning of the Pauline doctrine of original sin.

So why not look at what Paul says then?

It does matter that Paul is being literal, that is all you care about.

A fantasy reply again.

I have 2,000 years of Christian scholarship backing me, you have your a priori assumption. It doesn't matter to me how you interpret it because you have no substantive support. You have dismissed every exegetical treatment of the text and expect me to accept your opinion over Christian scholarship and it's not going to happen.

You have about 1600 years since Augustine came up with the doctrine. So far you haven't provided any scriptural or exegetical arguments to support the doctrine he got from a bad translation of Romans 5:12.

A text without a context is a pretext, in your case it's an a priori assumption.

And a doctrine without a text is a tradition of man.

Complete failure to actually make one.
No, I'll just let you argue in circles since that is all you have.

Reality is all I have. The bible doesn't say we all sinned in Adam. Sorry if you find my returning to the facts going around in circles.

First of all it's not based on a bad translation, that is absurd and baseless.

You haven't produced the slightest shred of evidence that the teaching we all sinned in Adam ever existed before Augustine based it on his bad Latin translation. I would say that the facts here are well established and all you can do in response is bluster.

You probably don't realize the Calvin was instrumental in producing the Geneva Bible 50 years before the KJV. You are probably also clueless that Luther was personal friends with William Tyndall or maybe just don't care.

The Geneva Bible was translated by William Whittingham, not Calvin, and no matter how well Whittingham got along with his wife's brother in law, or how chummy Tyndale was with Luther, Calvin and Luther both translated Romans 5:12 as because all sinned. While the Vulgate said 'in quo omnes peccaverunt' In Calvin's Commentary on Romans he retranslated the verse as 'quandoquidem omnes peccaverunt'. You can look up quandoquidemin an online Latin dictionary, it means since or because. When Luther translated the bible into German Rom 5:12 said, dieweil sie alle gesündiget haben, because all have sinned. The Hodge commentary you quoted actually tells you how Luther znd calvni translated the phrase.

The ordinary and natural force of the words expresses a perfectly good sense: 'All men die, because all sinned.' So Calvin, quadoquidem, Luther, dieweil, and all the moderns, except a few of the Romanists.​

 

[Assyrian]

Part 3

You abandoned the exegetical treatment of the text in favor of this childish banter. You support your statements with nothing but you rationalizations are ad hominem attacks. I have long held to the doctrine of Solo Scriptura and certainly wouldn't dream of abandoning it in a debate with a Darwinian.

Actually trying Sola Scripture would be a start. Instead you rely on tradition to tell you what the bible 'really means'.

On the contrary, I have made my case based on Christian scholarship that spans the centuries. You are advocating a modernist interpretation that is really just a distortion based on naturalistic a priori assumptions

No I am advocating reading what Paul actually says instead of relying on centuries of tradition.

Actually that is exactly what the text means, 'you will surely die', and it says Adam would surely die the day he ate from the tree. No subtleties or nuances, it was a common Hebrew idiom that means 'surely die'.

Look it up or you will probably never realize just how foolish that statement is.

I did. It is a grammatical construction that means 'surely die'.

I know from the text that what Paul ties is 'the death passed to all men' to the 'because all sinned'.

Because 'by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin'. You really have to quit jerking phrases out of their proper context.

I am looking at the phrases the way Paul said them, you are the one who wants to change them around. Sin entered the word through one man, death spread to all men because all sinned.

That might work on people who don't know the difference.

I have shown you the evidence Augustine lined the ef w back to Adam because of his Latin translation. The Greek means death passed to all men because all sinned. Why do you keep trying to deny the plain fact that this doctrine comes from Augustine's Latin when you can never show it in the Greek? All you can do is complain about 'context' by which you seem to mean the traditionional interpteation that dates back to ... Augustine and his Latin mistranslation.

Rom 5:12 propterea sicut per
.-> unum hominem in hunc mundum peccatum intravit
|.et per peccatum mors
|.et ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit in
. <-quo omnes peccaverunt
(Douay Rheims) Wherefore as by
-> one man sin entered into this world
|.and by sin death:
|.and so death passed upon all men, in
.<- whom all have sinned.
It's not in the Paul's Greek but the idea lingers on.

A literal Adam, the father of mankind, specially created, who sinned and brought death and sin on all mankind is not based on Augustine. It is a Pauline doctrine based on a literal interpretation of Genesis.

A literal Adam, Not mentioned in the text the nearest is Paul's claim to be intercepting Adam figuratively.
the father of mankind, Not mentioned in the text either.
specially created, Not mentioned in the text.
who sinned and brought death and sin OK brought sin into the world and death through sin.
on all mankind Not in the text, Paul say death spread to all men because all sinned.
is not based on Augustine. Yes it is. I have just shown you.
It is a Pauline doctrine based on a literal interpretation of Genesis. No it is not a Pauline doctrine, and Genesis doesn't say we all sinned in Adam either.

Don't forget that Paul used that word in a context you have distorted beyond recognition.

Don't just claim it, show it.

How many times do I have to refute this superficial rhetoric.

Once would be nice.

You don't have an argument.

Then why are you the one relying on appeal to motive fallacies?

Paul says Adam was a figure of Christ, that does not mean he is not a literal person. You are really wasting a lot of time pretending to make a point here.

You are wasting lot of time pretending I am making a different point to the one I actually make. But then, you can't answer my real point. all you can do is answer a pretend one.

I quite agree, Adam being described as a figure of Christ does not mean he wasn't a literal person. Doesn't mean that he was either, we would have to look elsewhere for evidence Adam was literal, but as you say being interpreted figuratively doesn't mean Adam wasn't literal. I don't know why you huff and puff as though that was my point, it isn't. It never was. My point is that the statements Paul makes about Adam are figurative. If his statments are figurative, then you cannot take them literally, even if they are figurative statements about a literal Adam. Paul made figurative statements about Sarah and Hagar. Sarah and Hagar are literal, the figurative statements Paul made about them are not. Hagar was not a literal mountain.

He was using the literal Adam as a figure of Christ. That's all there is, there is no more.

There is lots more. If Paul say Adam was a figure of Christ, then his comparisons of Adam and his sin to Christ are figurative comparisons. Those figurative comparison began back in Roman 5:12 Therefore just as... Of course you can make up you own context to read the passage in, I prefer to go with Paul's explanation of what he was saying.

Show me your sources, I'm tired of looking things up just to have them ignored or dismissed.

Produce decent scholarship and it won't be dismissed. Anyway here is how Philo and Josephus interpreted Genesis Philo thought both the days of creation and Adam and Eve were allegorically. Josephus seem to have taken Genesis 1 as plain and straightforward but that Moses switched to speaking 'philosophically' when he spoke of Adam and Eve. In his preface Josephus explained that some of what Moses wrote was plain and direct, in other places he is writing enigmatic and allegorical.

Philo ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION, I - Part 1​

II. (2) "And on the sixth day God finished his work which he had made." It would be a sign of great simplicity [foolishness] to think that the world was created in six days, or indeed at all in time. ​

XXX. (92) It is therefore very natural that Adam, that is to say the mind, when he was giving names to and displaying his comprehension of the other animals, did not give a name to himself, because he was ignorant of himself and of his own nature.​

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON GENESIS, I - Part 2​

(45) Why God asks Adam, "Where art thou?" when he knows everything: and why he does not also put the same question to the woman? [Gen_3:10] ... there is an allegorical meaning in this passage, because the principal part is the man, his guide, the mind, having in itself the masculine principle, when it gives ear to any one introduces also the defect of the female part, namely that of the outward sense.​

(53) Therefore this is the literal meaning of the text; but if we look to the real meaning, then the garment of skins is a figurative expression for the natural skin, that is to say, our body; for God, when first of all he made the intellect, called it Adam; after that he created the outward sense, to which he gave the name of Life. In the third place, he of necessity also made a body, calling that by a figurative expression, a garment of skins​

Josephus Antiquities of the Jews​

Preface 4 while our legislator speaks some things wisely, but enigmatically, and others under a decent allegory, but still explains such things as required a direct explication plainly and expressly. ​

Book 1 CHAPTER 1​

2. Moreover, Moses, after the seventh day was over begins to talk philosophically; and concerning the formation of man, says thus: That God took dust from the ground, and formed man, and inserted in him a spirit and a soul.(2) This man was called Adam.​

Whatever...

I take the literal Adam as a figure of Christ.

Feel free. Paul doesn't say Adam is literal, but that is a reasonable interpetation from your standpoint. What you cannot do is assume Paul's descriptions of Adam are literal. It is Paul's description of Adam comparing him with Christ that are figurative.

...you have provided no evidence the bible ever says we all sinned in Adam

The phrase, 'by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin', means the same thing.

we all sinned in Adam
and
'by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin'
means the same thing?

I think that says it all. You either have no concept of the meaning of simple statements, or you are so blinded by your traditions that you are unable to look at scripture to see what it actually says.

Don't dismiss Hodge and then appeal to him, I really don't have the patience for that.

Typo, sorry. I should have said Barnes actually claims it doesn't say we all sinned in Adam...

From the title of the exegetical work you dismissed:

FROM VERSE 1 TO 11, INCLUSIVE, THE APOSTLE DEDUCES SOME OF THE MORE OBVIOUS AND CONSOLATORY INFERENCES FROM THE DOCTRINE OF GRATUITOUS JUSTIFICATION. FROM THE 12TH VERSE TO THE END, HE ILLUSTRATES HIS GREAT PRINCIPLE OF THE IMPUTATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, OR THE REGARDING AND TREATING THE MANY AS RIGHTEOUS, ON ACCOUNT OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN, CHRIST JESUS, BY A REFERENCE TO THE FALL OF ALL MEN IN ADAM.​

Simply say all men fell in adam doesn't make it so. You need to provide some sort of exegetical basis.

So you are saying that mankind was a figure of Christ, gotcha

Paul said Sarah was the New Jerusalem, Revelation says the New Jerusalem is the bride of Christ. Is Jesus going to marry his great great grandmother? The church is the body of Christ, Christ bore our sins his body, therefore the church bore its own sin? You can play silly games with biblical allegories, but they are just silly games.

I know Paul said it, it's obvious in the English translation, in the original and in the minds of Christian scholars down through the centuries. Adam is only considered a figure of speech to modernists who don't care what Paul actually said or meant.

If Paul said 'all men sinned in Adam' as you and Hodge seem to believe, you should be able to show it in scripture, without as you have been doing so far, grabbing a random verse and saying it means the same thing.

Once again, the Latin translation has nothing to do with it. You keep chanting that but there is not an ounce of substantive proof backing your claim. It's based on the Koine Greek and I really don't care how Augustine translated it.

I have shown you where the Latin says we all sinned in Adam. All you have to do, is do the same in the Greek or any decent English translation. You can't because we all sinned in Adam only comes from Augustine's bad Latin translation.

That is a meaningless rant.
The only alternative being you, it not only appeals to me but is preferred.

No the alternative is looking at what scripture says.

And I keep telling you, right here:

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)​

"Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin" (Rm 5:12).​

"By the one man&#8217;s offense many died" (Rm 5:15).​

"Through one man&#8217;s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation" (5:18).​

"By one man&#8217;s disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19).​

Why not highlight it the next time, because I still can't find 'we all sinned in Adam' in any of those verses. Any more empty shells to show me?

What you have done is lay aside traditional Christianity for modernist philosophy. There is nothing Biblical about it.

Nothing biblical in looking at scripture to try to understand what the writer is saying?

 

[mark kennedy]

Just bumping the thread so I can find it easier.